ASEAN urged to work more closely
Forum participants call on grouping to increase collaboration, be responsive to citizens’ needs
Increased collaboration is key for the Southeast Asian region as it strives to rebuild its post-pandemic economy while dealing with challenges like geopolitical tensions, climate change, rising inflation and digital disruption, according to officials, experts and industry leaders at a regional forum held in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which has emerged as a new growth center of the world’s economy, also needs to stay relevant and responsive to the needs of its citizens as the region navigates external headwinds, according to participants of the 2023 ASEAN Leadership and Partnership Forum (ALPF) held on May 11 and 12.
The forum was organized by the KSI Strategic Institute for Asia Pacific, ASEAN Business Advisory Council, Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KADIN), ASEAN Economic Club, and Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia (FPCI). It was supported by the Economic Club of Kuala Lumpur and the World Business Chamber.
The event was held after the conclusion of the 42nd ASEAN Summit at Labuan Bajo in eastern Indonesia. Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who is this year’s rotating chairperson of the regional bloc, had presided over the two-day summit which included leaders from Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Myanmar’s leader was absent from the summit, while Timor-Leste’s leader was there as an observer. Timor-Leste is vying to become ASEAN’s 11th member.
“ASEAN is no longer a regional power which sits on the sidelines of the global economy,” Arsjad Rasjid, chairperson of the ASEAN-Business Advisory Council, said in his welcome speech at the forum.
Rasjid, who also chairs KADIN, said that the steady rise in GDP for the past few years has transformed ASEAN into the world’s fifth-largest economy and the fourth-largest exporting region. This has “major implications” on the future of investment inflows and resilience of the global supply chain.
Alluding to this year’s theme of the ASEAN summit, Rasjid noted that ASEAN countries are “broadly regarded as the future base of global production and consumption”, or as the Indonesian government has defined it, “a new epicenter of growth”. As such, it is in ASEAN’s best interest to approach the future of its development with “a spirit of togetherness and cooperation as a solid community”.
Mochamad Ridwan Kamil, governor of West Java, Indonesia’s biggest province, noted how regional blocs like ASEAN are part of “globalization 2.0”. Kamil delivered a welcome speech at the ALPF’s opening ceremony where he stressed that intraregional trade will strengthen relationships among ASEAN members.
“Managing global (trade) is too big.
But (trade within a) regional bloc is manageable,” he said.
In an interview held on the forum’s sidelines, Kamil cited ASEAN’s economic growth and the region’s population of more than 600 million.
“In the era of globalization 2.0, a regional bloc like ASEAN is getting more relevant,” Kamil said.
Rasjid’s and Kamil’s speeches served as a prelude to the different panel discussions that were held during the two-day forum. With “ASEAN Matters — Centre of Growth, Opportunities and Prosperity” as the theme of the forum, participants shared insights on connectivity, food security, digital transformation and a lowcarbon energy sector.
Kunihiko Hirabayashi, secretary general of the ASEAN-Japan Centre, said building trust, transparency and co-creation are key to “people-centered collaboration”. He said climate change and environmental degeneration, for example, cannot be resolved by a single country. But by working together, ASEAN and its partner countries can find an “actionable solution”.
Kirida Bhaopichitr, director of Economic Intelligence Service at the Thailand Development Research Institute, said climate change, increasing USChina competition and how artificial intelligence is threatening job security are among the major challenges that the region has to overcome. She said connectivity and collaboration will help the region “survive through this perfect storm”.
In dealing with geopolitical tensions, for example, Kirida said ASEAN needs to focus on building a resilient supply chain in the region that will make the bloc a “very attractive” investment destination. She also cited climate change, and how this is “not an individual country issue”. “When there’s forest fire in Indonesia, it affects all the way to Singapore (and) Thailand,” Kirida said, alluding to trans-boundary haze. “If we don’t collaborate to mitigate and adapt to climate change… I don’t think we will survive very long.”
Ravindra Ngo, founder and CEO of Singapore-based think tank The Asian Network, moderated the discussion on food security and climate sustainability. He summed up one of the key points of the discussion: that stakeholders, including government, business and civil society, must collaborate to promote sustainable policies and practices to mitigate environmental risk and improve access for all.
“The three Ps — people, planet and profit — are not enough. We need to add purpose — the purpose to make and contribute to a better world,” Ngo said.
Chhem Siriwat, an advisor to the Council for the Development of Cambodia, said in a panel discussion that digital transformation “is not just about technology, but it’s about change. It’s about a change in mindset, which will lead eventually to a change in behavior”.
The three main pillars of digital transformation are culture, workforce and technology, he said.
In Indonesia, digital transformation,
along with financial assistance to improve information and communication technology infrastructure, has helped boost the creative industry, said Indonesia’s Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Sandiaga Uno.
The creative industry not only contributes to regional GDP but also creates jobs, he said in a special address, adding that education reforms have helped nurture creative talent.
Participants in a panel discussion on the ASEAN Green Deal noted that energy demand in the region accounts for only 5 percent of the global demand. But urbanization and industrialization has spiked energy demand, contributing to rising carbon emissions worldwide.
The ASEAN Green Deal, proposed by Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen while chairing the ASEAN Summit 2022, aims at a green future, sustainability, effective use of resources and economic competitiveness.
The green deal is “meaningful” because it is a policy framework available to all ASEAN members, particularly Myanmar, where development needs are again calling for attention, said Albert Oung, executive council member and Green Economy chairperson of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific’s Sustainable Business Network.
Rebuilding Myanmar as a great green nation with innovative technologies can help the agricultural sector to relieve the poverty of farmers, said Oung, also the founding chairman of the Hong Kong Myanmar Chamber of Commerce.
“With the help and protection of ASEAN, Myanmar will be able to gradually sort out its own problems by rebuilding its past glory as a great prosperous nation in the 1950s.”
“How are we going to revitalize our economy by doing those innovative, technological breakthrough projects,
and there are lots of them available in the world. What we need to do is pick the right project with the right formula and make it ASEAN,” Oung said in an interview on the sidelines of the forum.
Amid all these challenges is the need for the regional bloc to remain relevant especially among the younger generation who are the future of the region, according to Michael Yeoh, chairman of the forum and KSI’s president.
He said the youth need a “greater sense of purpose, a greater sense of belonging to ASEAN”.
Dino Patti Djalal, FPCI’s chairman and a former diplomat, said “all the stakeholders in society (need to) understand what ASEAN is” and how it can benefit people and businesses.
Djalal said that ASEAN needs to have a sustainable strategy on how to promote the association among citizens of its member countries. He said that there is still not enough people-to-people connectivity within the region as shown by the limited number of academic exchanges and intraregional tourism.
Sok Siphana, co-chair of the ASEAN Economic Club and senior adviser to the Cambodian government, cited the just-concluded Southeast Asian Games in Cambodia as one form of people-to-people connectivity “that raises the profile of ASEAN”.
Delia Albert, former Philippine secretary of foreign affairs, recalled an old report which stated that the concept of ASEAN as a community exists only among academics, journalists and those who participate in ASEANrelated activities.
Albert said the idea of “shared values toward a shared destiny remains to be a wish to be fulfilled. That is the greatest challenge that ASEAN faces”.