 dignitaries, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. A warm welcome to our open forum, ASEAN. My name is Philip. I'm here with the World Economic Forum. I'm responsible for all our regional summits, but to be very honest, this regional summit, this open forum is very, very special. First, it's really the first open forum at our ASEAN summit, so you are here for the first time, and even if we have had some other open forums in Davos or in other regions, this is by far the biggest open forum ever. More than 2,700 young Cambodians are here with us today. That's amazing. The second reason why it's so special for me and for my colleagues is, look, I will not bother with personal stuff, but I'm a German citizen. Even I look a little bit Asian, and the reason is pretty easy. So I was born, we have not even been planned, so 44 years ago during the Vietnam War in Vietnam, not far away from here, around 100 kilometers down the Mekong River. Most likely my parents have been killed during the Vietnam War, and I ended up in a Catholic orphanage in the Mekong Delta. Thanks God, as little baby was 9 months, I was adopted from my parents to Germany. I grew up in Germany, I got there the chance of my life. In a country like Germany, well-embedded in a multilateral body means the European Union. My parents have been very keen on education, so I would have had to go to school. Unfortunately, I went to school, I went to university, I became a physician, a doctor, I have a PhD in heart surgery. Then I joined politics, left the medical stuff, became a state minister, later a federal health minister in Germany, and then minister of economy and technology in Vice-Chancellor, means the deputy of Angela Merkel in the last legislator. So look, little baby out of the Mekong Delta could come to Germany, become a Vice-Chancellor. And guess what? This was only possible, again, because after the Second World War, Germany was embedded into the European Union. And our grandfathers and fathers and mothers and grandmothers, they all created this multilateral body, a very peaceful and very stable environment. And this is the best basis for prosperity. And guess what? Now it's on you. Your average age here in the room is not even 20, right? Two or something like this. And now it's in your hands. Certainly it's your own way you have to create the ASEAN community. It's also a multilateral body, already 50 years old. And you can create a multilateral body. I could benefit from values like democracy, human rights, transparency. There was no corruption, rule of law, and again, prosperity. And it's now on you to decide what should be the face of the ASEAN community today. It's your responsibility to create a similar peaceful and stable environment I could benefit from for you, for your generation, and for the following generation. And it's not on us from the guys here from Europe like me to give you any advice. Because one thing is pretty clear. The future of ASEAN has to be written in ASEAN. That's written by you. And you have so perfect, excellent examples here on stage. They will share now the ASEAN dream. They lived with you. You can ask questions. And then you can start your engagement for your ASEAN dream. Again, I want to welcome, thank you very much for being here. On that note, I'd like to hand over to Ramak. Thank you so much, Philip. I think everyone can agree your story is one of truly inspiring stories of our generation. Thank you all so much for being here. I'm really pleased to be here. My name is Jamil Andalini. I'm the Asia editor for the Financial Times newspaper. I'll be your moderator today. I'll be moderating the questions from the audience and asking questions of our wonderful panel here today. So the topic of our session today is called, it's the ASEAN dream. So more than half the population, as many of you know, in ASEAN is under the age of 30, which is astonishing when you think about it. Also, ASEAN is the region that has the fastest growing internet population in the world. Every single day in this region, 124,000 new internet users are created every single day. That's really an amazing statistic. Today we're going to hear about the ASEAN dream of our very distinguished panel. On my left here, you're right, is Wei Wei Nu. And Wei Wei has an amazing, almost as amazing story, I think, as Philip or about as amazing story as Philip. Wei Wei spent seven years as a political prisoner in Burma, Myanmar. She was imprisoned because of the political activities of her father. And she was just telling us before how she spent these seven years in a cell with her mother and her sister, but was not able to see her father for that entire time. She was imprisoned at the age of 18, 19, a truly incredible story. The most incredible thing I think about Wei Wei, we all agree, is just how positive and how forward-looking she is. And that's been a real inspiration. Next to Wei Wei is probably most of you in the room are already very familiar. This is Kaokum Hoon, who is the minister attached to the Prime Minister in charge of foreign affairs and also in charge of ASEAN. So very relevant to what we're going to be discussing today. Thank you so much for being here, minister, and for helping to organize everything. Next to him is Tony Fernandez. Most of you will also be very familiar with him. The CEO of AirAsia since 2001 when he founded the airline, known globally as a rock star businessman and very frequently seen on television and in the Financial Times and many other media outlets. Next to him, last but not least, is William Tanuwajaya, who is the co-founder and CEO of Tokopedia, which is one of the fastest growing internet companies in the region. It was the very first in 2014, which he explained to me is like a millennia ago in tech terms, but in 2014 Tokopedia was the very first tech start-up in Indonesia that raised 100 million US dollars. So a very successful young man who will tell us a lot more about his ASEAN dream, I believe, coming up very soon. So I'd like to start, she told me not to start with her, but I'm going to start with Wei Wei, I'm sorry. I want you to get us started off. Define for us what is your ASEAN dream? How would you describe your ASEAN dream? Thank you so much. Thank you so much, your wonderful introduction too. I'm really pleased to be here in front of particularly like 2,000 young people here and I always feel empowered whenever I see young people. So when you say what is your dream of ASEAN, I would say of course I wanted to say at the last because I think it would be the most critical dream because we understand that ASEAN come together as a purpose of development and to become a community, develop community in the country, in the region. However, I think development can be only sustained when people are secure. When there is security, private security, public are secure and when there is like inclusiveness of the community in the region, in the countries, respective countries, accessibility of the people in the region like everyone has access to those aims, those dreams and those purposes and those opportunities of the development or for the dream. And more importantly, I think it is very important to address the fundamental issues and problems that we are facing in the region and in respective countries particularly when it comes to the long standing conflict and the questions of human rights abuses. So my dream is to become an inclusive society where all people in the region can enjoy freedom and security and with respect of their dignity and human rights. So this is my dream. Right now we have a lot of obstacles and I think something is lacking in our community of ASEAN which is critical boys. So in the future, in our generations, in the next generations, I hope ASEAN can be more open to have more critical boys on the fundamental issues. That is my dream. Thank you. Thank you so much. I think that is a really critical point that we can't discuss anything if people do not feel secure and they don't have basic human rights, basic access to normal rights that you are describing and the right not to be thrown in prison at the age of 19 I think is a pretty fundamental if you haven't committed any crime except your father's political activities. So moving on to minister, could you tell us, actually you said something very important I think in the room when we were chatting before. You said something in some ways quite similar that without peace and stability it's very hard to talk about development. But please, I'll let you speak for yourself. What is your ASEAN dream? Thank you very much. Jim Mel, distinguished panelists, actually ladies and gentlemen particularly our youth here. I'm indeed honored to be invited to be on this panel and share my view on ASEAN dream. ASEAN 50 years on and as we reflect on the future of our region. First come to my mind I always think about the five piece. That's how I think we define the future of ASEAN dream. The first piece is called peace. We must ensure that ASEAN will have perpetual peace. We cannot take peace granted in this region and it's part of the world. So perpetual peace is going to be one of the dreams of ASEAN. Second I would say has to be prosperity. Prosperity for all. I know it's a daunting task for the governments, for the different institutions in ASEAN member states but also in ASEAN collectively. But prosperity is not an impossible task. For all as long we work together to share the benefits of development for all. I think we can do this. My next piece of course I'm all looking at poverty. In our region we have pockets of poverty. We cannot deny this reality. But poverty elimination is the goal of every government in this region. And that's why we work hand in hand to build a community, a sharing and caring community that will work to reduce poverty in the pockets in this part of the world. And let's go on to my fourth piece and that's progress. Progress has to be made. Not only by governments alone, but by the different parts of society in our region. Progress in all sectors from education to agriculture to trade and among other things. And progress of course also has to work hand in hand with our partners beyond the region. So progress is really always that we have to review regularly how are we making our progress in all sectors of the society. And finally come to my last point and that's I think it's very important. At the end of the day we must focus on the people. People's center, people audit ASEAN. ASEAN is about people, about people to people connectivity. That's why I think this open forum for ASEAN is one way of defining how we reach out to the people. And that's what ASEAN governments have been doing now is to reach out to the people that are going to use to represent the future of this region. And I think all of this is that we cannot take for granted what we have been achieved, what have already succeeded up to now. And we have to thank the forefathers of ASEAN and of course the current leaders who have tried very hard to maintain peace, stability and security. And that's why we're seeing, in the case of Cambodia, we've seen the Cambodia miracle. The ASEAN miracle. We have peace to build security so that now we can focus a lot more on development, on sustainable development, on how to bring down poverty, how to maintain peace, focus on education that every person should have the right to education for example and decent jobs and skills. So I end with that. The future rests in our youth here. They have the best opportunity now because their parents may not have been able to enjoy the same opportunity that they have. Today our youth have the best opportunity to capitalize on. They had the future ahead of them. And of course, once again, we cannot rest on what we have. We cannot take peace for granted. Thank you. Thank you very much, Minister. I think your five P's are a good way to see what's happening in the region and the priorities for the region. Tony, what is your ASEAN dream? Well, it's going to be very hard to follow these two. But firstly, it's fantastic to be in Cambodia. What an amazing country. And you should be all very proud of everything you've done in this country. It's truly amazing for me to come back here after so many years. So congratulations to all the Cambodians for all you've done. You should be very, very proud having gone round all of Asia, seeing how friendly people here, seeing how you develop, seeing how you're so positive. It is quite an incredible place for me to come to. So thank you for welcoming me here so warmly in your amazing country. Thank you very much. My dream is very simple. I hope all of you only fly on Air Asia forever for now. That's it. Thank you very much. No. Look, when I started the airline 15 years ago with two planes, not a lot of money, but a dream. And I love the title about ASEAN dreams because I'm a dreamer. I believe that without dreams, there can be no reality. Without pushing yourself and saying you can do it, nothing will ever happen. And over the last 16 years, we've grown from two planes to 200 planes. In the first year, we carried 200,000 passengers. And this year, we will carry 63 million passengers. And it's been an incredible ride because what we saw when we first started Air Asia was this amazing 10 countries called ASEAN. Everyone was focused on China and India. But we said if we could build an airline that connects ASEAN and makes it a smaller place so that the people of ASEAN could get to know each other better, then what an incredible business model we could create. And so that's what we've done. And of the 60% of destinations that we have started, sorry, of the 100%, 60% of destinations that have never been done and of those, the majority are within ASEAN, making ASEAN a smaller place. So my dream is for the people of ASEAN, if I take YY's point, to be more inclusive, to get to know each other better. I think what minister said is ASEAN has been successful in putting peace together. We have a very peaceful region over the last 50 years. It's now moving that and taking that peace and building more economic prosperity and using the 700 million people that live in ASEAN to benefit from each other, to bring down the barriers, to open up the non-tariff barriers and create a huge economic powerhouse that can rival India and China. And at the same time, I believe economic growth leads eventually to better human rights, more openness and a better quality of life. I feel very strongly about human rights. I sit on the Council of Amnesty and so I think economic prosperity can't go without human rights as well. So my dream is that really, if we were to be honest, what does ASEAN mean to the population of the 700 million people? I'm not sure it means a lot. And I hope over the next 10, 15 years, as ASEAN becomes more interlinked, that ASEAN becomes to impact more people in this room and in Malaysia and Indonesia, et cetera, and that all of our prosperity grows and all of our quality of life grows as well. And in 15 years time or 10 years time, all of us will feel special about ASEAN that it's more than just a word and that we will benefit it from ASEAN. And of course, don't forget, please fly in Air Asia. Thank you very much. Consistent messaging is important in building a strong business, obviously. William, what is your ASEAN dream? Let us know. Thank you, Jamil and thank you, Cambodia. This is my first time in Cambodia. It's a privilege and a honor to be here amongst such an amazing panel. For me, my ASEAN dream is to continuously be a part of this hopeful generation with a very strong sense of purpose. I wish to see more of the three types of groups. The first group is aspiring politicians in this region that can set a very high bar of a standard. A new standard that inspiring the whole generation and the next generation that being a politician is to serve the citizenship. To build a very open and clean government and to bring prosperity for the region. The second thing that I wish to see more is the rise of entrepreneur, a business leader with a very strong sense of mission. Today we have a fan of Mr. Tony Fernandez's leadership and his organization. Asia, for example, is not only with a very strong sense of mission where everyone can fly, but today can transform to be an iconic organization that represents Southeast Asia, that represents ASEAN dream. I wish for the next generation to be able to witness and see more that the next Walt Disney, the next Google, the next Tesla, Facebook can come from Southeast Asia, for Southeast Asia. And I really wish to see more individuals that as a Southeast Asian do not wait for an excuse, do not wait for a role model so they can drive a change, but they can pick a challenge, they can pick a mission that core to their heart and really be that driver of change. So today we have like Wei Wei, she doesn't wait for a role model to set her pace or her mission in life. She can be that role model. And I think that we are that hopeful generation. So, and I really wish to see more Southeast Asia that can dream with their eyes open. If I can continuously be in that group of hopeful generation, that is truly my Asian dream. Thank you, William. I mentioned at the start this amazing number, 124,000 people a day who are becoming Internet users every single day and that is expected actually to continue at the same pace for the next five years. So maybe starting with you, William, because of your business, how important is this connectivity and what are the opportunities that you see through the region given that number that I've put out there? Yeah, it's a truly open opportunity for everyone. So two decades ago in this region we already have access to Internet but at point of time, 20 years ago we just become the market. We are consuming all the Internet products from especially US market. But starting perhaps 10 years ago we start to see the homegrown entrepreneur start to create their own local Internet services and just in the past four to five years we see the rise of a new industry. In Southeast Asia alone now we perhaps have at least 7 multi-billion dollar companies from the tech sector itself, one from Vietnam, three from Indonesia and three from Southeast Asia. And I truly believe this is just a new beginning. So technology will keep changing. Internet will keep changing. So the next will come artificial intelligence and so on. So we are not only seeing that the one that can create value out of it is the one that just being the part of that industry. But that industry alone will create a lot of applications. For example, our business in Indonesia have more than 1.5 million individuals and small business owners to start and grow their business. So it creates another sector of industry. So this is truly the fourth revolution industry. So on the third industrial revolution, for example, people don't really to be involved in creating a personal computer to be able to be a part of the game. So I wish to see more of this new industry comes up. And this is definitely the level playing field. So Internet gives access to everyone in the region, connect everyone in the region. Minister, maybe I can turn to you. You're on the National Economic Council here in Cambodia. So how focused are you on connectivity and increasing Internet access for people in Cambodia? Well, for Cambodia, as the newcomer started in 1993, particularly after 1998, we did not really invest a lot in what we call the, for example, the Kimmel telephone landlines. So we started on mobile technology, like smartphone, like mobile phones, so that the investment can come in, people can benefit quickly, can leapfrog. So one thing about technology is to leapfrog as much as possible, without wasting time and sources. So that's one thing that I think the government has been doing. Second, that this is an open society. Cambodia today is an open society, and there are very little barriers here. And therefore, for example, when it comes to business sector, every sector is completely liberalized, meaning that if you cannot compete, the government will not subsidize. So that's why foreign investors can set up a company one percent owned by foreign investors, for example. So also technology here is that we have to make it accessible for more people. We have to make it cheaper for technology, particularly for internet. And that's why recently one of the companies, they began the investment in what we call the underwater cable network. So the idea is to bring the cost down as much as possible and to increase speed. At the same time, for the people to be able to use, right now we have 3G, 4G in Cambodia, some for some time already. And not just 3G only in name, but 3 or 4G, but really in actual delivery. So for us, I think it's important that the technology, with the internet, young people have access to more information around the clock. They can look up everything freely. The problem, the challenge here is that not everything is reliable. Right, on the internet. Fake news. Yes. So this is the problem. How do we verify what is reliable information out there? So I think that's something that we have to do more homework there. But for us in Cambodia is that we need to leapfrog where we can take advantage of being the leadcomer. But also we have to hook up our economy, reach non-global economy through speedy integration. And that's why everything we do right now, for example, in Cambodia we have e-government. Every time we have a cabinet meeting, we have real conferencing to all the provinces in Cambodia and to all the different offices. So, of course, on the one hand you talk about confidentiality but I think the government is quite open, quite transparent. A lot of things that the government decide automatically is put on the Facebook, the Prime Minister, for example, or already being released immediately. So this is how transparent we are moving ahead with that. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to take Tony's lead and I'm going to say if you want reliable information, you should buy a Financial Times subscription online. You have a very fast internet connection in Cambodia. You'll be able to read it perfectly. Tony, maybe you could tell us a bit about how your industry, which is quite a traditional industry these days, how are you being disrupted by technology, by the speed of connectivity in the world at the moment? I think the internet is the most exciting thing for us, Jan, because it's giving us a chance to leapfrog more traditional industries and compete aggressively. So Air Asia started, you know, we were the first airline to use the internet and that's how we were able to compete against the bigger airlines, Singapore Airlines, MAS, etc. and now 85% of our business is on the internet. So I'm a big, big believer in it. I also have beginning to see many ASEAN entrepreneurs such as William, etc. coming from the internet and seeing a much larger marketplace. You see Grab Taxi, you see many of these companies going across their borders much, much quicker. Partly because I think governments haven't regulated, so it's enabled entrepreneurs to be much, much quicker in building these internet businesses. And so I think the whole digital revolution is very exciting for ASEAN. It should be very exciting for the 2000 younger generation here, because there are lots of budding entrepreneurs. I think ASEAN must be driven by entrepreneurs. It's got to be. One thing that we're a little bit disadvantaged by vis-à-vis China and India is borders and that's what I hope these borders come down. So William, if he wants to sell goods across ASEAN, has to go through many customs windows. There's no single, single window as opposed to China where you can ship your goods anywhere or Europe, etc. So I think that's something ASEAN has to work harder on so there will be more Williams and more entrepreneurs coming through that can take the size of the market. Going forward, I think we see technology as an enabler. We see that we're wi-fiing our planes. We think data is a phenomenal thing that we can use to make our passengers travel better, but also we can sell more with it. And I'm very excited by artificial intelligence. It is incredible what is happening in that field, the pace that's going again. I think that's a huge opportunity for Cambodians, a huge opportunity for ASEAN to get into that technology while it's still early. I see huge advancements in artificial intelligence. It's going to disrupt all of us. It doesn't mean that jobs are going to be lost. We shouldn't be fearful of technology taking out jobs. We should move up the curve in terms of productivity using technology. I think it's a wonderful opportunity. What I see in AI is quite astounding. But if you don't change, and I think that's the message that I'm giving is that if you don't change, you'll be lost. The pace is really quickly. Change management is so critical now in Southeast Asia or any companies in Southeast Asia that if you missed the boat, you could be obsolete. 10, 15, 20 years ago Nokia was so, so powerful. We all had a Nokia phone. We were talking about it earlier on in Motorola. They've gone now. That's an opportunity for all of us, but it's also a danger if we don't adapt quick enough. And sometimes I fear regulations slow us down. Thank you. I think we'll come back to that in a minute, but I wanted to ask Wei Wei. So you're the founder and the director of the Women Peace Network. And you were talking a little bit to me before about how you're trying to use social media to empower people in your home country in particular. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that? Yeah. I think I truly believe the technology is not only things that connect each other. It gives us a lot of opportunity for our career to pursue our dream. And as I really appreciate the title of this panel, we can pursue our dream by using technology. But also we can inspire others by using technology and social media. As we discussed in ASEAN, increasing the number of Facebook user and social media user by young populations, it's a unique. And I believe we have to be using it effectively. And I would always like to encourage and I also do the same to inspire other young generations and encourage them to use social media and technology effectively. It is because we can see that a lot of the negative side of the usage of social media by having fake news and by using technology as an opportunity by interest group to promote propaganda, to promote hatred, to promote racism. Those things are happening around the region. And so what I do basically is encourage other young people to use this Facebook and social media to effectively to actually take responsibility for their own, how to say, community or the people or the country or the region. We can use it. It is our responsibility to use effectively, to use positively to shape our future. If we don't take responsibility as young people for our future, the interest groups in our community, they will take advantages by using this. So basically I have, so while in Myanmar, while we have this violence against Muslims or you know like these communals and also this discriminatory violence happened. And there were a rise of nationalism, you know, basically like lead by some, you know, even Buddhist monks who we respect a lot. So there are big critical situations there were and it is continuing, you know, the rise of this, you know, nationalism, extreme nationalism, something like that. And what we do is come up as a positive messages by using social media, you know, showing evidences of friendship among diverse community, like friendship between diverse ethnic groups and religious group and honoring those friendship in social media by saying that here are the example. We prove as an example without even saying it, you know, that by giving stories and examples of relationship that people have. And then we prove that here we have the good stories, we have a good relationship. We have been living together and we are, we've been living peacefully and we can live together continuously. We shouldn't be afraid of diversity. We shouldn't be afraid of others who we don't like. You know, this is how we like to, we like to take responsibility for our community by using social media positively, you know, by being with responsiveness, you know, by having full commitment to our community. So that is why I think, you know, we have to be using this technology as an opportunity to shape our future and to, you know, to pursue our dream as well as to inspire others. For example, like for me, I do inspire actually many young people in my community and in the country by just using technology, social media, you know, by saying what I want to say, by showing what I am doing as an example. And like in the past, we know that like leaders of the countries, business leaders, political leaders, they have to use a lot of like, like how to say, the formal channels, like ordinary channels, like they have to come up in front of the people, give an inspirational speech and write letters and things like that. Nowadays it is very easy because of this opportunity of technology, you know, the development in technology. So we can inspire others. We can, as young people, we don't need to, you know, wait to get opportunity. We can use the technology instantly to inspire others to take responsibility for our community, for our countries, for our region by using social media effectively as well as to have, you know, better connectivity to be more connected. For example, if something happened in my country by using social media, you can immediately can learn it and then you can immediately respond and show solidarity. That's how we can be together by using technology in the future in our region. Thank you. Tony, you mentioned the idea of, you were talking about regulations and borders and maybe we could just move on to the idea of ASEAN as an actual unit and what it actually means. How important is, for each of you, is greater integration amongst these very different countries. I think if you looked at any group of countries and you compared Myanmar with Singapore, you couldn't get almost more different than those two when it comes to development level and access to electricity even. I mean, it's quite a vast gap between these two, but they're nonetheless both members of ASEAN. So maybe starting with you, Minister, maybe you could talk about how you see ASEAN integration, whether you think it's a positive thing for greater integration and how that might happen. I think ASEAN integration is all about good things for the people in this region and also for the partners. Integration in all forms and at different levels and across sectors. For example, we talk about economic integration. There's a lot of things that the ASEAN governments have been doing through the work of the ASEAN economic community, for example. Also, integration through even education sector, for example. How do we recognize what we call mutual recognition, for example. The degrees from one country another. So we have to integrate that harmonize. Integration also how ASEAN gets integrated into the global community. Because, for example, now we work with other partners through ASEAN, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, for example. That's another level of integration. But I think at the end of the day is that we have many levels of integrations in different sectors. I'll take one example of what ASEAN now works to have a single window. This, of course, is going to require a lot of work, but the commitment is there now. That if, say, goods move from Cambodia to another ASEAN member state, we have one inspection already. If we arrive to another destination, we should not have another inspection, for example. Because to save time, to save costs, all of these integrations, if we work together well, save time and save costs. Also, when we talk about integration here is that we're talking about, I think, even in the transport sector. Because the ability to connect each other. And I'll give an example. Before, when we travel within the ASEAN zone, we have to, for example, in Cambodia, if we want to go to Manila, we have to stay overnight in KL, Singapore or Bangkok. But today we don't have to stay overnight. This is because increasing connectivity and integration through infrastructure integration, but also integration through the harmonization of legal frameworks, for example, is another thing. Also, people to people, because now in the ASEAN zone, we don't need visa, right? More than 600 million people can move freely within the ASEAN zone without visa. And that's being done because of the integration in this region. And this will continue to speed up. We're going to gain more momentum. We're going to see more benefits, not only for the current generation, but also for the young generation, the future generation, that integration will benefit all. It will benefit everybody. Also, for example, integration through labor mobility. We can move around now. Of course, at the moment we talk about skilled labor, this is what we have in the ASEAN charter. But mobility is there in the ASEAN zone. So again, I think there's a lot of government works to address, meaning that in the future, government will continue to work in the different sectors, particularly through the three pillars, the political security pillar, the ASEAN economic community pillar, and of course also the social cultural community pillar. So all pillars, we have to work together. Also the same thing, as in the ASEAN, we have a lot of diversity also. And these diversity should be the strength of ASEAN. Because the idea today is that we should be integrated and appreciate the differences that we have. And that's another thing that I think we have to recognize is reality. So finally, I want to say on the integration is that the most important thing is that how ASEAN agreement, once decided by the ASEAN ministers or the ASEAN heads of states and government, these agreements would become automatically the laws in each country through the ratification process. And that, in a way, is part of the broader integration of the legal framework. And that's why with the ASEAN charter that was adopted, it was signed in 2007 and then according to fact in 2008, these have made ASEAN a legal body. And that's why what we decide now collectively is part of the ten ASEAN member states. So I think this is really how we need to do is that for the younger generation, I think this is very important, is that how do they see the future of ASEAN integration. Not only one member state integrated into ASEAN at the sub-regional level, two or three more countries get together and they work together. But how ASEAN is able to work with, say, China, India, Japan, Korea, the United States, among others in the global community, how we integrate, how ASEAN will take advantage being to get a ten-member state with more than 600 million people, how we're going to be able to attract FDI, how we're going to be able to ensure that this region is safe for tourists from other regions to come and visit ASEAN, how we also send our youngsters now, they go outside the region to study and come back, but also now there are other countries sending their students to ASEAN to study ASEAN also. So this is all the broader integration that we see is happening, particularly with the technology, with the internet, this is with greater speed and with abundant opportunity. And that's why I want to say one, of course, now is that increasingly our young people when they're exposed to each other quite often because in ASEAN now we talk so much about cooperation, but also we talk so much about competition also. It's not just cooperation, it's all competition, so that's why the young people now we have to ensure that they have more ability to compete within the region but to compete globally, because how we integrate into the global community is how we're able to compete. Second, of course, is how we raise the profile of the ambition of the young people. Today, I think, with 50 years of achievements, the younger, the more confident, and they want to take on integration to a higher level. Thank you. Thank you, Minister. You've given us quite a positive view, but maybe, Tony, you could tell us what ASEAN still needs to achieve when it comes from your perspective, in particular, what ASEAN needs to do better. Well, I mean... There's a lot of regional grouping. Yeah, there's a lot that you've made done better, but just to spend two minutes on the diversity part, I think the diversity is our strength, and I think, you know, within four hours of ASEAN there is such diversity, there is such riches in culture, and that is what we've exploited. Within our own company, we have a Thai CFO, our head of communications in Indonesia. We've just hired a very senior Cambodian to be in our marketing department, and that is our real strength. We've been able to grow because there's so much talent in ASEAN, but people are being very structured in how they've looked at hiring people. Well, we've busted all rules. That's how we've grown the way we've grown. I mean, we have lots of religious and ethnic issues in Malaysia, but we've said we don't care what race, creed color you are. If you want to be the best, you can come and join our company. And I think the more companies look at the talent pool within ASEAN, then they have a huge incredible resource which is not being used. And, of course, there are lots of issues. I mean, in starting Air Asia, you know, we went to Thailand the first time, everyone wanted to do things differently because they said we're Thais, et cetera, and I'll tell you a little funny story. The Thai pilots refused to go on the bus with a cabin crew. They said it was beneath them, they needed their own bus. In Malaysia's other way around, pilots refused to go on the bus unless the cabin crew were there. So you can see the diverse functions. So how did we solve it? We sent 10 Malaysian pilots up to Thailand to show them the benefits of going on the bus together. And net-net we had five Thai-Malaysian marriages. So we were integrating ASEAN from a very early stage. So it can be done. And just to all the future entrepreneurs there, of course there are loads of obstacles. But there's always a positive light. You know, during SARS, no one wanted to fly. They all thought they would die if they flew. And I told my staff, look, I know the people of ASEAN. If you put a fare low enough, they will risk their lives. Okay? 800 ringgit per non-pen. I'm not flying. 80 ringgit, who cares? I'm flying. So... You contributed to the spread of SARS, is what you're saying? Yeah, correct. So we're a tough lot. We're a tough lot. But as I said, the thing that I would really hope ASEAN will improve dramatically is the ASEAN secretariat. I think it needs more budget. I think it needs more expertise there. As a company in ASEAN that operates, we would love to go to one body to say, here's our suggestions. Whether it's harmonisation, whether it's human rights, etc. And I think, you know, ASEAN right now works on consensus and goes through 10 countries, and it takes a long time. And I'd hope that more power was given to the secretariat so things move quicker. The potential is huge. The potential is really huge. And I think everything the minister said, I echo. I just hope it can be a little bit faster. And I think if ASEAN put people first and not worry so much about protection or nationalism, everyone will benefit from a freer and open environment. Thank you. I'd like to ask all of the panellists or whoever would like to answer and maybe keep your answer relatively short because I want to also give everyone in the audience an opportunity to ask questions of our excellent panel. But how important is democracy? When we look at the US in particular, but many countries in the West, the idea of Western democracy maybe at the moment is a bit of a tarnished brand. But how crucial is democracy and the political freedom to choose your leaders when it comes to development and integration? I mean, how important is that to you guys? Whoever wants to answer, really? Who wants to go first? I mean, Indonesia, maybe William. You might not think about it, maybe, but... Oh, yeah, a democratic campaign. No? Tony, would you...? I think democracy is fundamental. I think what was said earlier, being open to criticism, it's just like my company. You know, right now there are many airlines that are similar to us named after animals. We have lions, we have tigers, we have all kinds of airlines like us. But that makes us better. And monopolies are bad. And I think democracy allows more competition, allows more criticism, allows a check and balance. And I think it's no secret that the freer a country is, the more creative thinking there is, the more openness there is. For whatever false America has, and it has many, it is a fairly free society, and yet they're always reinventing themselves and coming out with Google, coming out with Facebook. And the creativity is there. So I think democracy is fundamental. It's a good check and balance. It provides competition. I think us and ASEAN should be open to criticism going forward. And just like us, we've got to be open to criticism. You know, if we drag a passenger off the plane, we'll be hammered. But we don't, by the way. Don't worry, we'll look after you very well on AirAsia. That's my favorite question. However, I'd like to answer. For me, democracy, it's about participation and democracy. It's about the will, you know, the consent of the people. You know, where people can enjoy Tokpot in all process, particularly in government, in governing system. You know, how they want to be governed or how they are going to govern. They have to be able to make their own decisions by all people. Inclusion, participation, and freedom. It's a key in democracy. If we have these things in our systems, in individual countries and as a region, a statement from minister that we celebrate diversity and we respect and maintain diversity among the region. Likewise, I think it's essential to have this diversity and reach regionally. We have to promote diversity respecting others, you know, like recognition, recognizing others which can only be done by inclusion and by participation and by respecting people, you know, desires of freedom. Which is again democracy. By having democracy internally can enrich our ASEAN aim and go more effectively, we can really achieve sustainable development. That is why it is bias buzzer to have democracy, freedom, freedom of expressions and participation and respecting diversity and promoting diversity. Recognizing all the groups inside the countries it's essential to have, it's essential and again it is essential to promote democracy in each country and that I believe can lead our ASEAN shape to a lighter future. But now as I mentioned earlier there are some certain problems of, you know, like talking among the ASEAN leadership you know, like talking about and addressing the critical issues, fundamental problems and conflict in the region and plus individual countries. So there are some problems that has to be solved. For example like, as human rights activists we have talked in several, many, many diplomats and government and people like that and last human rights sessions in Geneva, I was in Geneva and I was asking one of the diplomats from Indonesia, you know, I was saying that you have to support international independent investigations in the country, in my country because, you know, domestic mechanism does not work to protect people in the country particularly in western part of the country against the Rohingya and many other ethnic groups and Indonesian diplomats tell me that if we support this or if we support the draft resolutions that allow special reporter on human rights in Myanmar to investigate the human rights violations in the country if we agree with that there will be another proposal like that to our country to have, you know, to have this kind of similar proposal will be faced by my country. So if you truly want to have sustainable development and one, you know, help each other in the region to develop ASEAN substantively and meaningfully, I think you have to be very honest. Minister you know, I'm sorry to say that I think leadership in our ASEAN region has to be very honest and supportive of each other you know, internally as well. That's how we can and reach regionally. I think this is really, really critical and thank you for the questions and democracy is fundamental as Tony mentioned. Thank you. Well, in the ASEAN Charter the word democracy and other words like transparency rules of law, good governance they are enshrined you're looking at the ASEAN Charter we just wanted the shortest document ever drafted compared to EU this is a very small document but the leaders of this region have this goal already in mind they want to ensure that ASEAN lives by this principle of democracy. I think to me how I look at democracy of course is very important democracy is about the world of people that they were regularly decide to fusion the country through recollections but it's also about openness about freedom and with responsibility also about the rule of law that everyone is under the law so it's also about open society ASEAN is it's important to have ASEAN being open and that's what we see that things are going along this front so if we have this process being open and that's why we're looking at this particular Charter they have become the living document for all ASEAN governments so in the case of Cambodia we see clearly this is open society we have elections every five years it's a fixed five-year term meaning we must have elections every five years and it's set on the last Sunday of July every five years it's set in this constitution this country we must have elections and of course access to information meaning we have people able to access information also that there will be a due process and that's very important now of course no democracy is perfect in this world as we've seen what's happening around the world in the US and other countries too what matters is that the people will have to vote for those leaders that stand for elections but I think democracy we have to look at in a way that will have to be a step by step also because development the rise of people education among other things cannot be forgotten once people are well fed and the country is well developed all this will go together very well so what's important is that we we're living in an exciting time exciting time that before let me give you an example in ASEAN ASEAN ministers and leaders would not be able to take up sensitive issues this is to be put under the cap we don't discuss period but today I think in the past five, six years now leaders would take up some of the most sensitive issues and discuss openly among themselves let's talk about the situation in Myanmar for example they discuss a lot of issues in Thailand for example on the board issue that would not happen before before on the issue of human rights you know we don't discuss much but now we have the ASEAN the Aicha for example the commission of human rights what I'm trying to say here is that ASEAN has come a long way in addressing some sensitive issues and they're able to take up matters that are very sensitive but yet we're able to arrive at an agreement that we have to move on so I think in this regard I think is that the progress is there and I'm sure ASEAN governments will continue on human rights on democracy on freedom of expression all of this these are looking back at the ASEAN Charter and I believe that ASEAN will continue to make more successes and achievements on this front thank you thank you so running out of time I want to give the audience a chance some of the 2000 young people in the room and someone very quick put his or her hand up waving at the back at the very very back maybe I'll give that person since they were so precocious got their hand up first with the red shirt is there a microphone we can give to that person to ask a question run run run thank you very much thank you very much to all of our speakers here this has been very interesting I'm Ms. Naishka I'm with CNBC Minister, I have a question for you in particular you talk about democracies and the importance of access to information which we all know is very vital for Southeast Asia could you talk to us a bit more about Cambodia in particular and treatment of government critics because we've seen quite a number of episodes over the past year that have a lot of speculation about the government's treatment of critics as well as political activists so I would love to hear more from you about that thank you the way we look at things is that you do not we have to look at things on the case by case Cambodia is an open society we have a lot of newspapers that criticize the government all the time I look at whether PNOPPING poster can be more daily or other newspapers for example you wouldn't mind languages paper which is fine they've been criticizing all along for many years now decades but there is a law that there's a limit to how much you can criticize with our evidence for example because you cannot go around defame individuals for example it's a free society but yet we have law okay and you don't want to play with law no one can play with the law because if you play with the law you can get into problem so I think what is important is that you know if you're looking at all what's happening I would say these are different cases not really putting together as this is a government crackdown on human rights and critiques the government because then why the government has to provide all this access to information on the cabinet meetings on the decision of government and what we always say in Cambodia there's nothing secret one society is being published immediately so I would say that again the rule of law is important we have to emphasize the rule of law because without rule of law democracy is chaos is anarchy alright because you cannot have a nice anarchy that is a contradiction so I think what's important is that everyone should have a fair hearing fair trial once they get into this process it's important that they have a fair trial and the process media of course it's an open media they report as they wish again I think if you look at us in member states what we report in Cambodia I think in some member states you go to jail already or you basically go bankrupt already you see but in Cambodia most of the time the government would not take on you just let you continue on as it is but when it's affecting the national interest like for example a border issue a border issue when you have a member of a state institution like the senate or a member of the parliament you go and remove a border post that's illegal that will be prosecuted or you publish information on internet you delete you add your own words all of such agreement between two countries you cannot do that and that's what happens when individuals they have ran to the law because they went on internet they were able to access a particular document and they doctored the document and then because this affects the security between two countries for example and also the interests of the country and that's why I think within the rule of law the government will have to take the court of law which is normal in the country right so I would say that it's not so much a government crackdowns against critics but the government selectively choose cases that believe that affect the national interest to secure the country and that's what the government had done is to take individual go through the two process of law I would like to select some people but I don't know where the microphones are the person in the red shirt good, thank you Hi, my name is Sarat I'm part of a startup in Cambodia I most likely want to know more about how we can leverage and improve the digital economy of a Cambodian economy I have two questions, one is to you I know you guys very clearly I'm a fan of Tokopedia you're part of Unicorn of Asia it's so cool this is like your Tokopedia growing rapidly fast and valuations growing rapidly fast but in Cambodia we want to know how could we learn from a startup ecosystem in Indonesia and what should we improve and what should be the next stage and how can we motivate the young innovators in this room to thinking about or to motivate about building the solutions for the social impacts, like yours the other questions to Tan Sri Yatoni I see a lot of disruptive innovations coming every day I see the AIs coming and then we see hyperlubes or Yi Huang in China they are going to launch the drone taxi in Dubai soon do you think that those people would be affected to your company or not in the future and how do you think about the innovation in Southeast Asia would change in the next 10 or 20 years thank you so much thank you very much maybe we can keep the answers short so that we can give more people chances to ask questions so William why don't you tell us I think the point of the question was how do you create an ecosystem for tech startups and what is your advice to Cambodia so it's need to start from somewhere and I think that it start from the mindset so it's not possible for Tokopedia 10 years ago I want to start my business it took me two years to convince people to give me the first financing to start the company at that time people will ask me about the role model there's no such a case of Indonesia or Southeast Asia entrepreneur that can build a technology company and become wealthy all the successful businessmen start from mining or like natural resources and so on and there's always a competition is so big you need to compete with all the global players internet is borderless so even though internet bring opportunity but we are still living in a very skeptical environment right so it's a very challenging and people bad at times asking about your education background your family background and so on and so on but again if you come from this mindset and see on the opportunity side actually is the era of underdog if you see all the global players that race from the internet era at the first day they are all underdog they are challenging the status quo against all the odds but somehow they can find a mission or a sector that they really care of and build a product that can really bring a value google is not the first engine in the world they are trying to challenge the status quo a bigger player facebook is not the first social media in the world they are also challenging the status quo so don't let people tell you what you can do or what you can do but you need to pick one mission or one sector that you really care of and build the best product out of it and focus on that and remember this is the era of underdog you can do what you want to do thank you William I think that's great I think you can relate to that Tony the era of the underdog and the second part of the question was for you and I think it was about how many I see things being disrupted I think disruption is the greatest thing about business and the greatest thing for young entrepreneurs is the ability to disrupt and you are incredibly well informed we are looking at that uber kind of taxi the drones I think the only thing I can say is you got to be adapt to change change comes very quickly and you have to have a culture that has the ability to change quickly if you don't have that ability to change you get steamrolled by the disruptors so at Ereja I always say we are only as good as tomorrow I don't care what happened for the last 16 years no one will remember that they will only remember the next few days so we have to have the ability to change we have the ability to put our hands up and say we made a mistake and we have to try and do something different and that's the only way to survive in this very very competitive world as there is going to be more and more disruptions and I think ASEAN is a perfect opportunity to really radicalize and shake up things and I see it so much in the digital space how quickly things are changing I mean Uber and Grab Taxi is a phenomena that wasn't around two years ago and now many people aren't even owning cars because of it and so maybe one day you can Uber a plane and Ereja becomes quite irrelevant and then I will join the University of Cambodia as a lecturer so who knows what's going to happen but just be prepared to change and if your culture doesn't allow you to change which is getting harder and harder for me because now we have 20,000 staff if you don't change quick enough you'll be history and people like William will take us over very very fast I have a question in the front here if someone can bring the microphone sorry to make you run around it's pretty cool how there are so many questions someone down here can make you run a chance right in the front sorry front row past the red the red line thank you Rami Sharif Senior Vice President at the Royal Group thanks so much for the panel and thanks for the World Economic Forum we talked about integration we talked about connectivity of people I want to combine both and I want to talk about integration of people and to be the voice of these 2,700 young Cambodian seeds of the future leaders of this country for them ASEAN is a slogan for them ASEAN is a dream and this is actually the name of the session how can we sincerely get the young Cambodians who are striving and to be part of this youth integration if it is by academia if it is by technology if it is by exchange if it is by internships if it is by being contained in some startups because these guys need the right platform they need a solid platform that can convince them that ASEAN is a dream to be achieved and not ASEAN is a dream to be fantasized about thank you so much and the question is for the panel anyone want to tackle that Tony, why don't you go ahead I think one thing you missed out is sport I hope one day there will be an ASEAN football league where Cambodia United is playing Colombo City Dubai, United, etc I think you're right as I said earlier on is ASEAN just a slogan but I think the platform is there and Eurasia grabbed the platform number one you've got to be strong in your own country let's be real ASEAN you can't just only say I want to be ASEAN you've got to have a platform and your own country is your platform but ASEAN gives you the ability to grow outside your country into a much larger market to compete with the giants that are going to come and I don't think we should block the giants from coming in because I think we're as good as those giants that are coming in so number one for Cambodian entrepreneur the equivalent of William so let's say he's starting the equivalent of Tokopedia in Cambodia or in Eurasia in Cambodia just be good in your own country and then you have the ability to grow it outside to a 700 million market and I think that is what this dream is about it's not about just in your own country of a population of 20, 30, 40, 50 million but the potential of reaching a 700 million market and then as the minister said to take that success to go to China India North Asia and the rest of the world I think that's what this ASEAN dream is about and we hope the leaders of the 10 nations start lowering the barriers to be enabled that to happen as a small point minister I've been wondering why it's still called a sea games why we don't call it the ASEAN games because people will say well Timo Lest is there so that's why it isn't but I'm sure Timo Lest wouldn't mind being called the ASEAN games so I think the answer sir is that it's not about just going to ASEAN straight away it's about step one building a business or an organization within your own country but then using the ASEAN platform to build a multi-national and I think that's what we hope the ASEAN leaders will facilitate more and that there will be very many more entrepreneurs like the guy in the back wearing a red shirt that looks like Eurasia I love you, thank you very much and you know what because you're wearing a red shirt if you see me at the end of this I'll give you a free ticket to wherever you want to go I think there's a very way of throwing the stone and throwing diamonds I think ASEAN is more than a slogan because look at Cambodia we are just 15 million people no one wants to invest in Cambodia of this small size market but if you're part of ASEAN market more than 600 million people now that's a real market a size one market so that's what we've been doing is that we had to take advantage of this second ASEAN member state have agreed already when they're nationals I encounter a particular when they are in a dangerous zone say a zone of conflict then the embassies that base ASEAN member state base in that particular geography their country will be able to provide real assistance to ASEAN nationals that's another real thing that we could do also this is not a slogan this is real things now we have an agreement signed by ASEAN member state that there were ASEAN nationals in a conflict situation where they have embassies for example that's another example but of course what's important now is that how do we constructively engage motivate in interest and inspire ASEAN generation members to take ASEAN to a higher level I think this is a challenge that we have to do thank you we have another question here on this side near the front I can only see an arm but come forward the arm sticking up why don't we yeah thank you yes stand up and tell us who you are please afternoon panel and audience my name is Sok Thun I'm from Panyasastra University of Cambodia I have one question to all panelists while in regard the ASEAN integration do you think what is the pro and con of the ASEAN integration in relation to ASEAN nation in terms of NGO perspective government perspective and also the business perspective as well and also it's an opportunity as well like Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos that we consider as a less developed country and what is the really pro and con that we could seek out from this kind of integration that could push that country to reach up like the world like Malaysia and Singapore thank you I think that's a good question so if we could keep answers brief that would be good because we're almost out of time but the key point there was what are the pros and cons to greater integration particularly for the less developed members of ASEAN so who would like to tackle that anyone I mentioned a lot already about pros there's a lot of benefits from ASEAN integration that we're part of a bigger size market we're able to travel freely in ASEAN zone without visa these are concrete benefits also your degrees being recognized eventually in other ASEAN member state you're able to move around and work freely in our if you have skills, you have degrees in other ASEAN member state these are some of the concrete benefits now what are the pros and cons in ASEAN for ASEAN Nationals of course cons of course certainly for ASEAN new members we our level economic development is still lower our GDP per capita is still lower but again nothing impossible Cambodia we had genocide some would not say Cambodia was from long period conflict in isolation for example people forgot all of the past already all the ashes and destruction that we had gone through but yet of course meaning that we had to catch up we have a lot of work to do we had to catch up we had to speed up our integration we had to speed up our human development we had to we had to also make sure that we participate constructively in all ASEAN negotiations at all level whether among ASEAN member state or between ASEAN member state and one the dialogue partners for example or ASEAN the other thing that we can benefit of course is that there are a lot of support for ASEAN a lot of support programs for the trade program training programs a lot of things that we can do so I think it's always a plus to be in ASEAN and also right now we can benefit a lot from the original but also sub-regional cooperation we have also there are different programs called sub-regional cooperation arrangement and also through ASEAN because like Cambodia we are a small country so we can open all the embassies around the world so what we could do is that we can engage major powers in other countries at ASEAN meetings where we can have a lot of meetings but engagement quickly use ASEAN as the cornerstone of foreign policy for example use ASEAN as a way to market our products to take advantage of this so these are some things that we take advantage of thank you can you say something yes we can see some relactancy in terms of integration due to the country's economy status we can even see clearly at the visa process like country like Singapore Malaysia it's not easy to get visa from country like Myanmar while I can come freely without visa to Cambodia and see the differences very clearly but I think to be able to balance those inequality among the state it is very important to promote peace and stability in individual countries as minister was highlighting peace as one of his dream and probably ASEAN dream and without peace and stability inside the country we cannot uplift the economy so without having economic growth we can never be never achieve this balancing in economic status in the region so that is why I am emphasizing that ASEAN member states has to support each other's countries to really bring peace internally that is how we can bring peace and development internally as a region that is one thing and the other thing your question is about the gap between young generations and older generation and I think there is we are kind of influenced by this ASEAN value things like that young people or women are less taken seriously critically but I think the ASEAN should take youth, young people women like marginalized community very seriously and it should be all in their agenda not just only as a gentleman mentioned it should be all youth not only this 2000 youth in this room youth who are in the refugee camps in Malaysia youth who are on the hand of traffickers youth who are exploited by this due to this corporate agencies or due to this trans-border criminal act and because of this inequality among the economy status all youth boys should be heard in ASEAN and future and their role should be taken seriously we have ASEAN youth forum and this is a good initiative and we really appreciate how as minister mentioned ASEAN has come along and it has to be strengthened by listening people its people as they value the government leadership value people it has to be listening more carefully to the people and giving spaces to the people to really meaningfully giving spaces to the people particularly young people bringing young people to the leadership level that's how we can break through this gap between young generations and older generations thank you not an ad for Asia just a real quick one obviously just to answer the young man's question we've all been talking about the pros and of course there are some negatives there will be some losers this isn't a zero sum game but I think obviously some industries some companies within a certain ASEAN country may lose out etc but I think the overall benefit of ASEAN has been shown in any economic grouping the European community take aside the euro take aside the immigration and all those kind of issues as a trading block it's been very very successful if you look at South America also very very successful and after Donald Trump wanted to change it two weeks later he said no because it has been successful so there are lots and lots of benefits and just one small point there were no female pilots in Southeast Asia to have female pilots the other day was history captain was female co-pilot was female all the cabin crew were female and all the passengers were male that last bit is not true so we have taken diversity all the way and I fully endorse that I like to have humor like you all the conversations having a little bit of humor so inspiring let me go I've won one passenger over today two first one was free I'd just like to that's unfortunately all we have time for thank you all for coming I'd like really to thank the really great panel this remarkable and inspirational young woman the minister for being a good sport when we got into some tougher tougher topics Tony for your relentless marketing and humor of course and William thank you for your story which is really a great one as well so thank you all very much my last two words is that please love ASEAN