PM touts Kingdom’s potential at WEF

Beijing issues a trade row warning

CHINA on Wednesday warned that protectionism threatens global growth and cautioned “individual countries” against isolationism, in a veiled reference to the d e e p e n i n g t r a d e s p a t between Washington and Beijing that is being closely watched across Asia.

The comments from China’s vice premier come as the world’s top two economic powers edged closer to an all-out trade war after imposing tit-for-tat tariffs on billions of dollars of imports.

Tensions between the UN and China were heightened last week when US President Donald Trump threatened to hit all China’s exports to the US worth more than $500 billion as he doubles down on the “America First” agenda he says aims to protect jobs and industries from overseas competition.

But without directly naming Trump or the United States, Vice Premier Hu Chunhua warned against countries going it alone and upending the globalised trading system.

“Some individual countries’ protectionist and unilateral measures are gravely undermining the r ulesbased multilateral trading regime, posing a most serious hazard to the world economy,” Hu said at the World Economic Forum ( WEF) in Hanoi.

“Self-isolation will lead DESPITE the Kingdom’s current status as a labour-intensive economy, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Cambodia had a high potential to excel in the fourth industrial revolution within the Asean region.

Speaking on Wednesday at the 27th World Economic Forum (WEF) on Asean in Vietnamese capital Hanoi, the prime minister said Cambodia has been promoting the development of entrepreneurship within small- and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs).

“Cambodia is a country with a high potential to seize the opportunities arising from the fourth industrial revolution.

“Getting ready for the digital economy and responding to the fourth industrial revolution has become a goal of the royal government in this mandate. We will focus on strength- ening and expanding the foundation of the digital economy with human resources and new skills,” he said.

Just last week, a seminar was held in the Kingdom on the topic of industry 4.0, as industry experts at the event said the Kingdom would need to adapt qui c k l y t o t e c hnological advancements taking place on the factory floor.

Ngeth Chou, a senior consultant at Emerging Markets Con- sulting, agreed that the Kingdom has the potential to take part in the next major wave of industrial innovation.

However, he said the government must be ready to manage the consequences that would impact the labour market, and foster the growth of skills.

“It is a matter of using technology instead of labour in order to reduce the cost of production. We have to look at what our human resources capacity is. In order to attract investors, the government has to formulate policies that balance the capacity for new skills and mitigate joblessness.”

He noted that while there are windows of opportunities, the Kingdom has a long way to go.

A study by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in June last year found that some 40 per cent of the population works in the agriculture sector.

nowhere and only openness for all represents the right way forward,” he added.

The trade row has dominated discussions at the WEF where Southeast Asian leaders have made the case for fewer trade barriers as America retreats from the region under Trump, who has decried trade deficits in the region.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) “is working with like-minded partners to strengthen the rules-based international system,” Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said.

“It under pins g row t h a nd s t a bi l i t y, but i t i s u nder pressure.”

The trade tussle between Washington and Beijing is being closely watched across Southeast Asia where some export-focused economies may be set to gain from the fallout.

Rising labour costs in China have already precipitated a push into countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia, where Adidas shoes, H&M T-shirts and Samsung phones are made on the cheap.

But the trade rumble has accelerated that process, with several Chinese firms turning to the region to produce items from bike parts to mattresses in a bid to avoid US tariffs.

“Asean countries don’t want to count their chickens before they hatch,” said Fred Burke, managing partner at Baker McKenzie in Vietnam.

“But I think they see it on a net basis as a gain for them because it means shifting manufacturing into Southeast Asia that was [earlier] in China.”

Long-term less rosy

Although there could be a short-term boon to Southeast Asia, some analysts warn that the long-term may be less rosy.

The region is “very exportdriven . . . so any shift toward more trade barriers . . . is not good”, said Rajiv Biswas, AsiaPacific chief economist at IHS Markit.

Asean trade increased by a value of nearly $1 tr illion between 2007 and 2014 and the bloc had a collective GDP of $2.76 trillion last year after an enthusiastic embrace of trade liberalisation – a marked contrast to Trump’s policies.

In one of his first post-election moves, the US president pulled out of the sprawling 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership ( TPP), calling the trade pact a job killer.

The current edition of the WEF, which closes Thursday, is officially focused on how economies should adapt to socalled “disruptive technologies” such as automation and ar t i f i ci al intelligence that threaten to cull jobs in emerging economies.

Severa l r e g iona l le ader s have joined the forum, including Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Ca mbodia’s newly re-elected strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen and Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi is under intense global scrutiny over the Rohingya crisis and is scheduled to speak at the forum Thursday.

Last week, the International Criminal Court ruled it has jurisdiction to investigate the forced deportation of 700,000 Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar’s military as a possible crime against humanity.

Myanmar has also faced international censure over the decision to jail two Reuters journalists for seven years under a draconian state secrets law for their coverage of a Rohingya massacre.