 Good morning, everybody. Thanks for bearing with us. Welcome. Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. Just a few house rules to get things going with. Just to say, if you've got a mobile phone, please, for our panellists' sake, can you have it turned off? Just to say this is also being live streamed on the internet, and it will also be broadcast a week on Friday, six o'clock on Bloomberg Television, Hong Kong, and Singapore Time. My name's Rashad Salaam. I'm the host of a program called On The Move, which goes out at 9 a.m. on Bloomberg, each and every morning. And we will be ending with a Q&A session, and it'd be just good if you could mention your name and the organization that you come from as well. Thank you very much indeed. We should start off any second. Well, we're here this morning to discuss the challenges facing the ASEAN nations and how we can move away from growth models that are, well, fairly dependent on the export side of things. How can we actually have a deal of a greater degree of integration to move away from that and have intra-ASEAN trade here as well? And for that, of course, great integration, and that brings us onto the subject of we're looking at ASEAN's network to future. And I'd like to introduce our guest. We have here Cesar Corisima, who is the Secretary of Finance for the Philippines. We have Hirohiko Kojima from Mitsubishi Corporation, also co-chair of the World Economic Forum in East Asia as well. Harish Manwani is Global Chief Operating Officer for Unilever. And of course, we have over there Kitarat Narono. He is the Finance Minister for Thailand. And last but certainly not least, Tarek Sultan Alisa, who is the Managing Director of Agility Group as well. Now, I'm going to start off with asking each of our participants about how they frame the debate, what they think the priorities are. And I'm going to start things off with Kitarat Narono. Well, I would like to be most brief to say a few words about the relevance of this topic. The bottom trade within the region was lower than 20 percent. And as of now, it's already higher than 26 percent. And of course, 26 percent of the very high growth of trade. Thailand, as sitting in the middle of the mainland ASEAN member, and also we can connect to our friends in the east, like the Philippines and the nation, Brunei, and also down south Malaysia, Singapore. We believe that it's our responsibility to work the best with our member friends in ASEAN to offer ourselves to improve the connectivity and transportation system. And the efficiency of the so-called logistic and transportation as being non-human resource costs would allow the so-called human resources to be more efficient and have the ability to earn more in order to have higher possessing power for their well-being, of course, and as being the counter-trade partners with the other countries. That's what I believe. Kojima-san, you come, of course, from a Japanese perspective, but one which is, of course, with Mitsubishi so ingrained in this part of the world. Please. Thank you very much for your kind introduction. And it's a fact that Asia has taken a greater importance in recent years. And as a key driver of global economic development, and likely continue to do so in the future, particularly under such circumstances. And now, and Japan has a role, but I'll speak a little later. So what is the secret to Asia's sustained economic growth? I believe the reply is the region's economic diversity in terms of the different stages of development among nations. And the fact that the Asian nations are in different stages of development allows companies to be more selective in setting up a local production with labor costs rising in China. And other potential production bases like Vietnam and Myanmar are ready to catch up the competitiveness. Investment in these nations also serves to realize sustainable growth for the region as well as more industrialized nations such as Japan, South Korea, and China to focus on more value added business activities. This multi-level development framework gives Asia the flexibility of the regions. That is my point. Harish, I mean, I asked you whether you were global chief operating officer or Asian chief operating officer because you're based in Singapore, but it speaks volumes that you are based there. And it gives us an idea of the importance of this part of the world. Yeah, well, it's no surprise because 57% of Unilever's global business actually comes from developing and emerging markets and 90% of our growth comes from here. And if you just do a simple math, then 75% of Unilever's business is going to be in the emerging markets with Asia as our biggest block and ASEAN as a very significant block. If you look at ASEAN, for example, we operate in every one of the 10 countries. So our presence and we haven't, I mean, this is not new. We've been operating in some of these markets for 80 to 100 years. From a business perspective, if I can just make a few comments on ASEAN, the first, of course, is that we follow the people. There are 600 million people. This is one of the fastest growing parts of the world. And most importantly, it's been a beacon of stability in a context of a lot of economic turbulence that we've seen in the world. And that makes it very attractive. I think the excitement and the challenges of ASEAN are all related to how do we make this growth more inclusive? Because that's really what will drive it. And how do we make it more consumption like? So the first thing that I want to really put on the table is about how do we work together to create a consumption led growth model? And this is, to my mind, one of the big challenges of ASEAN. The second bit is around building intellectual capital and talent. It's interesting that while ASEAN is a great story in terms of economic growth, if you just look at the number of patents, for example, or the number of PhDs, and I'm using this just as a surrogate, the share of ASEAN is significantly lower than its economic share. And I think this is an area that needs to be worked at. The third, and to my mind, what we as Unilever feel very passionately about is this whole concept of sustainable growth. Because we live in a very resource-starved world, whether it's energy, water, and so on. And how do we work together between public, private sectors to really create a growth model that will be not just sort of good economically, but good in terms of also being more sustainable. And lastly, if I can make one comment, which is something I often make, we often make within our company, what is the purpose of coming together as a block? And I think the purpose of coming together as a block has to be always to remember that you still have to be locally relevant. I think the point that was made about cultural diversity, national boundaries and sovereignty, locally relevant, regionally leveraged, and globally material. And I think to my mind, if you can hit these three, you hit the sweet spot. Cesar's Ministry of Finance, Secretary of Finance for the Philippines, presiding over one of the biggest stories right now in ASEAN. What's your view? Well, I believe the future of ASEAN is bright if we do things right. Imagine, as a single country, we'd be the third largest in population and seventh largest in GDP right now. I believe we need to do things right in three main areas. In regulation, infrastructure and people. In regulation, I think we have to realize that there will be no room in an integrated ASEAN for regulatory nationalism. We all have to go for harmonization of our regulation in the areas of customs rules, in the areas of mutual recognition, in the areas of standard across the board. Second, in infrastructure, I think what we need to attain is what I would refer to as complementary interconnectedness. Companies like Unilever will have a main role in making this a reality by making sure that all 10 countries will be winners in integration. And they've started doing that by making countries specialized in certain products. At the global company level, I think that's good. What we need to do is work on regional companies and ultimately SMEs. The third area is people, because after all, economies are about people. In ASEAN, we still have about 80 to 100 million people in poverty. And we need to make sure that we invest in them. And this is right at the heart of the agenda of President Aquino in the Philippines. We're investing in our people, our infrastructure, and we're opening up our country. And I think we're seeing the effects of that, that with better governance, we can unleash the potential of our country. Tariq, of course, logistics, the heart of your business, no doubt the heart of the priorities that you want to seek. And also, of course, these bottlenecks that do exist therein. It's correct. We tend to frame the opportunity as being one associated with the supply chain. We all know that FDI is largely driven by how competitive the supply chain is. And the research shows that up to 10% of growth within ASEAN is being literally robbed by not addressing some of the supply chain barriers that exist. So from a policy perspective, the low hanging fruit is how do we address these barriers? And I think there's two parts to them. There's the physical infrastructure barriers. And I think countries by and large are doing quite a good job developing the physical infrastructure. There's some initiatives across that are being funded by the ADB through the east west corridor that are addressing the infrastructure from a regional perspective. I think countries can do more by filling in the gaps, working on selective basis on partnerships with private companies to fill in the gaps that aren't being addressed by some of the larger plans. But by and large, I'm quite confident that from an infrastructure perspective, the government's will get it right. The main issue or the main concern is on the softer issues, the soft barriers. And for me, there's three that I think are essential. The first is that when you look at the way countries approach supply chain issues, these matters impacting the supply chain are dispersed between different government agencies across the board, it's courts, it's customs. There's no single body that's responsible for supply chain competitiveness in a country. So I think the first thing that we need is a regulator on a country by country basis that's responsible for the supply chain. We have regulators in banking, we have them in telecom. I think it's about time that we had them in the supply chain. If 10% of growth is at stake, then I think it makes sense from a policy perspective to have such a body. Secondly, that sort of organization needs to be cascaded upwards within ASEAN. So ASEAN also needs to have a mirror of that organization with a body of its own that can look at the soft supply chain issues that are really responsible for, I think, driving growth. Thirdly, I think at the end of the day, this cannot be accomplished without really looking at the electronic infrastructure for trade. A lot of investment has been made in ports and airports and oftentimes it's the easiest to do. But what holds back the potential of those investments is not having an electronic infrastructure that allows all of these stakeholders to communicate with each other and to function as a system. And that's where I think the opportunity lies. Thank you, Tariq. Let's start off with asking Harish about the supply chain issue as well. I mean, it's the heart of what you do as well. So what needs to be done? Where are we? And what are the next steps? Yeah, no, I think it's a very valid point. And like I was saying, when it comes to leveraging efficiencies regionally, it's important. I mean, you know, you don't want to have a situation where there are absolutely no economies of scale. And supply chain plays a really critical role here. I mean, we have, for example, manufacturing plants are almost all the countries. Having said that, the whole logistics behind end to end sourcing of raw materials, and you spoke about specialization. I mean, there is a lot of scope here. Now, we haven't quantified it. But all I can say is that more and more companies are moving towards regional supply chains. I think global supply chains, particularly in fast moving consumer goods, is still a step too far. But regional supply chains, certainly. And I think I fully agree that there is a lot of scope here. One of the key projects that we're working on is the national single window. And the goal is to make sure that each of the country has one and will connect to each other. Because then the imports from one country automatically become the, or the exports rather from one country become automatically the imports into my country. Not only will make movement of goods much easier, but it will reduce smuggling. I think a key to this is making sure that we harmonize our standards, our nomenclature and everything to make sure that our systems work with each other. And we have seen the impact of this in the electronics industry. It's one of the industries that were integrated ahead of 2015. And in the case of the Philippines, 15, 20 years ago, they were already sounding the net knell for our own electronics industry because the cluster was not complete. But with advanced integration, our cluster now is not just the Philippines, but the whole Asian cluster. And moving electronic products from the Philippines, say, to Penang or Singapore is just like moving it from Chicago to California. And I think that's what we need to do with the rest of the industries. But this will need a lot of coordination. Yeah, Kitarai, the political will to do that. And what benefits do you see from it for your country in particular? Well, of course, to add to extensive risk was that us in member countries has got commitment to develop ourself, this whole call, national senior mentor, because we really want to be more sufficient when we interconnect. The trouble is you have so many different and disparate, as Tariq was saying, government departments who are fighting for their own slice of the cake, aren't they? Yeah, what I'm about to add after that is that once we have international commitment with our dialogue partners, it's also internal commitment because we're talking about several organizations within the country, those government organizations and agency. We really have to work together in order to develop the so-called national senior mentor. So the strong will on the political side is there because we have a milestone deadline in order to deliver that. Then I couldn't have agreed more with Sutan Alessa that to improve the area of government regulatory work can be very effective in terms of economic prosperity. And in Thailand, the list of finance where I'm directly responsible is designed with the work from the government to work with all other ministries and also government agencies to look into the area that we should improve. The ease of doing business is important. Then I would like to encourage you all to work hard into that. And if we can achieve that, I'm sure that the economic activity is not only within the country, but from outside. They will trust us more and they will be happy to do business with us with more efficient costs. What about human capital as well? I'd like to ask Kojima-san about that. Human capital. I mean, you've got so many different factories, plants, et cetera, offices in this part of the world that you've got to transfer those staff there. You have a huge amounts of paperwork you have to go through. Okay, I referred a multi-level development framework and in these connections, and we are developing our business in Asia, then Japanese companies have a long recognized and leveraged multi-level development framework in their own business strategies. The company has their own business strategies while providing much needed transfers of technologies and business practices to other Asian nations. And rather than simply transferring existing infrastructure and systems, when relocating production basis to Asia, Japan companies have worked closely with local employees and utilizing their collective expertise to address local issues and challenges, while developing the kind of local talent capable of making their own decisions in their future. These processes also facilitated the division of the labor throughout Asia, which helped to make the region's supply chain more efficient. I'm very much confident that this economic diversity which has served Asia so well in the past will continue to play a very key role in her future prosperity. That's very, very important. Well, I believe human capital is one of the biggest assets of Asian. Our average age is 27, as opposed to say Japan at 43 and Europe at around 43, but we need to make sure that we will allow mobility. We need to make sure that we invest in them. We need to make sure that we get the right people in the right place. And that's why the Philippines is excited in integrated Asian because we will be the second largest population in integrated Asian and probably the most mobile. But whether we're mobile or not, it's important. We should have the right skills. And that's why since President Okinaw took over, he's increased the budget in education by over 50%. And we'll continue to do so because having our people actively participate in the future Asian integrated economy will be crucial to making them believe that it's a win for them. Because if poverty stays, then people will say that their life is worse off. So we have to make sure that everybody's a winner. And this is where companies like Unilever, the global companies, will really play a very important role. They cannot put all their eggs in one area. They have to make sure that each country will have a role in this integration so that they will improve their trust and confidence in integration. Can I just just a quick add to this thing? I think there is another dimension that Asian countries have to have to start looking at, which is how do they benchmark globally? And it's not just about regionally. Can I make two points, one on supply chain? We speak about costs. I think the opportunity for ASEAN is how do you marry the concept of Japanese quality with Asian costs? And how do we really make sure that in terms of benchmarking, you are able to go out there to the rest of the world and be able to show that you can do both? I think there should be much more emphasis on quality and cost and not just cost. That's one. The second on talent. Again, I would say if a large part of the world's growth is going to come from Asia, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that we are not producing the kind of talent and leadership that can be globally benchmarked and it's the responsibility of countries and companies indeed to build what I call global leaders, not necessarily leaders that are ASEAN leaders or Asian leaders. You're going to make this happen to some extent with what you do. So what's your take on it? Well, I think first the issue of cost. It comes back to what I see are the supply chain barriers that are actually leading to those costs. I think the way you address that is by having or thinking about the ability to change. The only constant going forward in the future is that the pace of change is going to accelerate and as governments and specifically around the supply chain, it's going to be very difficult to change with the current approaches and I think that we need to focus again on this concept of a regulator, focus on electronic infrastructure because the only way to get change to stick is to be able to manage it in a different way than we have in the past. Again, with 10% GDP growth as the the bonus, I think it behooves everybody to really focus on this issue and let's have somebody on a country by country basis responsible to actually improve the supply chain on a sort of benchmark by benchmark basis. When we get to that stage, I think we'll have the ingredients necessary to actually move very quickly and reap the benefits of this change. Kitterang, how far are we away from a genuinely free market, a single market perhaps? When do you envisage it happening and indeed human labor, human capital is going to be absolutely at the center of that? Well, form-wise we're not that far away substance perhaps still have to solve a little bit of a problem in the mindset but I would like to refer that you know histories repeat themselves. If you talk about you know the less prosperous economic situation we've got to start suffer or enjoy depends on how I want to term it with the unemployment low wage, cheap labor cost but then after a while when the economy can improve itself into higher prosperity then the cost living is higher, wage is higher then naturally the more labor intensive industry, business and low value added would have to be solely transferred to the less prosperous economic that happened in Europe, it happened in East Asia not too long ago even like three four decades ago, East Asian countries the base is to produce low cost government then later on it's impossible anymore and then Thailand absorb it. Now it's about time for Thailand to work to transfer those living tensiveness into the others. Then when you talk about how far away we're from the education I think as I said form-wise we're not that far because now as an example we've been working for decades and as of now the custom tariff of about 90% of items is down to zero already. Now the rest is only very small items and before we approach 2015 I'm sure that all the tariff will be eliminated but then the problem that we have to make sure my own set have confidence in my own self will be the NTV and not to replace with the no tariff with the non tariff barriers and that has got to be something that we have to hold hands and work together because countries will be under some pressure with domestic misunderstanding or demand to help solve problems in some area but I believe that because of the long period of time that our same country has been worked together I'm sure that we can achieve that crazy. As of now people seems to divide into three steps like you know trade in goods, in investment and then the free flow of human capital. As of now I think instead of doing step by step the three aspects of this are working together in a very good progress. I'm going to bring in Kojima-san before I say so. Kojima-san you of course have a huge experience with them going up the value chain you mentioned economic diversity saying it was one of the great success story why ASEAN was so successful. Could it be a curse as well? Yes and the presence of many nations being at different stage of development means that the region is home to providers of capital and technologies and the low materials and the energy and production bases and labor are also boosting an impressive consumer market for business this means that there are an opportunity to build supply chains therefore value chain management and supply chain management are very important in Asia. Up to now say Japanese companies have invested mainly in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines and other Asian nations also and we are now trying to develop more in Asia. We have shared our work ethics and sense of reality with the local work forces introduce Japanese manufacturing techniques and develop value and the supply chains. One example is Thailand's auto parts industrial cluster which Japanese companies have promoted and this kind of business model now coming out so many therefore we like to develop more business and we like to communicate collaborate with Asian countries from time to time then eventually the level of the value chain and supply chain will be now increasing. I'd like to pick up from what Kon Kitarat mentioned earlier that we're getting there. I believe we'll get there if we do not lose sight of ASEAN centrality and this is where I think TPP the Trans-Pacific Partnership will pose a key challenge to the ASEAN as a region because TPP has four ASEAN members as members and as you know the aspiration of TPP is a high standard trade agreement and if that happens the four members suddenly become a backdoor entry to the rest of the 10 and this can cause problems because the non TPP member countries of ASEAN who might lose in terms of the US market might start putting up their hands and that's why I think as a block we should never lose the key premise in integration which is centrality of ASEAN and if we lose that we won't achieve our goal of having a common customs border we won't achieve our vision of making ASEAN the hub of Asia trade because we should not remember forget the fact that individually the ASEAN countries are small unlike the BRIC countries and we are only strong or stronger if we work together if we harmonize together and if we look outward together because if we start competing with each other instead of complementing each other then we will have challenges especially from a political standpoint domestically so I think that's what we should not lose yeah well I can't agree with with the points that have been made firstly what does a business really want business really wants to make sure that there is regional harmonization of regulation I think that's point has been made and it's absolutely critical the second bit is the eventual removal of not just trade barriers but non trade barriers that's critical and I just sorry such as such as for example you know pre-inspection that have to be done quota systems on agriculture products there are lots of these that that impede movement of goods and again I come back to saying ASEAN is bigger than I think ASEAN even imagines this is 600 million people fast-growing economy surrounded by some really big markets so my view is that when you when you talk about intra ASEAN trade it's a big opportunity it's 25 percent today if you look at EU for example it's two thirds is intra EU now you can say they were bigger countries but the way I see this between the ASEAN and ASEAN plus three there is a huge intra trade opportunity that can be unlocked if we can actually create these these common markets in a true sense and and the last bit bilateralism must not trump creating an economic block in ASEAN and that I agree with you is the real danger everyone wants to go and do different deals then the logic of ASEAN goes. Tariq how do you respond to that? I totally agree I think the solution to the opportunity is within the ASEAN and I believe that the opportunity needs to be approached from a ground up in ASEAN and only by doing so will you fully realize the potential of this tremendous block. Keterad okay this is almost when you use words like commonization it just strikes me it's almost EU talk here now let's move along and talk about what else we can talk about the EU and what they've been through. Would you see single currencies being ever something which the ASEAN nations would consider or just shudder at the thought of it. But to be as straight on as I would say impossible. The reason is that you know ASEAN countries and to send ASEAN the economies in East Asia too we have together suffered with the ASEAN economic crisis in 1997 and we have seen the benefit of the exchange rate currencies which I believe that it's the very important substance of this market-based and capitalism system the country. I think if just imagine what if after 1997 Thailand for example we somewhat take our Thai part currency with the US dollar 25. So actually by nature we dollar rise ourselves or we are in the US dollar zone. But what if after that crisis we have got to still stick to that and then cannot adjust the local currency to the level that would turn the country from a deficit situation to surplus. We perhaps wouldn't have today. Of course it's so painful in early days that we have got to accept that fact but it helped solve the economic problem of these countries in Southeast Asia. So I think it's impossible for the idea of a single currency among the ASEAN members. I thought you might have a question. No, no. I totally agree with Konketerat that single currency is not something we're looking at but more integrated financial market is I think what is necessary. Individually our markets are very shallow. What we need to do is create an ASEAN class of financial instruments so that we can attract continue to attract large capital to the region to help us invest in our infrastructure, invest in our businesses. We also need to create the market deep enough so that we can recycle our own reserves. What currency would they be denominated in that as a thing these financial instruments? It doesn't market, it doesn't matter. So long as the standards are the same, disclosure requirements are the same, the trading platform is the same, they can trade in pesos or Singapore dollars or Thai baht but the market are connected. That I think doesn't need to be one term. By being one doesn't mean you have to lose your individuality. I think it's important that you're just working together towards a common goal. The reserves of the region is almost a trillion dollars. Imagine we have to send that out to the money centers of the world for foreign fund managers to determine whether they can invest it in ASEAN when it's our own money and I think it's important that ASEAN people determine where their money goes and for that to happen we need to deepen the market, we need to integrate the market and I think that's a goal that we should do earlier than the 2020 deadline. Harish I'm not going to ask you the currency question but what about the deepening of these financial markets and with the company like Unilever which is so global does it really matter for you? Well you know for a global company what matters is simplification and essentially I think the more important thing is simplification of regulatory processes that's number one simplification of taxes and so on within a country so you don't create complex myriad of this thing and of course financial markets that work. To my mind I mean I'm glad you didn't ask me the question on currency we've got too many experts here all I can say is that it's a very theoretical discussion we are having considering what people are seeing in the EU but having said that the idea is to have a transparent financial market that is as simple as possible and I think it's I mean you know remember that there's not just one currency in the world there are still many currencies in the world and the world seems to be moving ahead and the problems are not caused because because there is no single currency so I think it is possible to manage the system even within the current context. Tarek. I think it's very clear a single currency would not give us the 10% growth bonus that we're looking for that's going to come from looking at the supply chain issues that are impeding those opportunities and that's where we should focus and the focus first starts at a local basis and the and creating the capacity to change and impact the supply chain across each and every country within the ASEAN and then after that how do you do it for a regional perspective. Tarek. I'm interested this 10% of GDP is it a one-off or is it over a certain length of time what? You know the I think it is a one off and I think it's a theoretical number I personally believe that it's probably a lot there's a lot more at stake than just 10% I think it's a compounding sort of repeating benefit because when you start addressing these barriers all of a sudden all the issues related to labor mobility are being pulled by demand and you know you can you have a growth that's driving sort of revenue development you have growth that's driving employment opportunities so it becomes much easier to address some of the issues that are facing the ASEAN so I'd like the audience to take part now if they would do I'd just raise your hand say which person you'd like to address and your name and the organization you're from as well I think it's that gentleman with the glasses over there first of all. Thank you Mr Chairman and Patsuo master from Japan I'm teaching in Agoya and they're fascinated with wonderful talk about towards unification of ASEAN and overlapping with what EU has experienced over the half century but let me play at a devil's advocate and I'd like to ask one word by each panelist what would be the largest risks going against the efforts of implication of ASEAN in future would that be the impact of climate change would that be the joining of PTT or intervention by big powers from outside thank you. Gitarat Ranongong first. Well I think the high risk is not those as identified by the you but I believe that it's the mindset and understanding of the people because by work together they're always pro and cons in every move of the economic activities and policy and if of course the administration of the country would try to look at the overall benefit of the integration but of course they might have some negative impact immediate impact on certain groups and then those certain groups need time to adjust themselves so I think that's the that's the greatest risk and as a politician I think it's the political risk of the understanding of the waters within the country. I've got to get another politicians view here as well. Well I'm not a politician but I think bilateralism is going to be a big issue when countries start continue to think of themselves vis-a-vis the world rather than ASEAN with the world because if that's the case then it will create all sorts of complications politically for the various leaders of the region and in any integration process you need a lot of trust when people bring their guards down they don't want to make sure that they won't be hit by a punch so we need to continue to build the trust we need to continue to prove to our own people that they will win in a more integrated ASEAN and all of us governments corporations multilaterals and the big powers will have a role if they want to see a stronger integrated ASEAN. Harish very quick word from you on this. Yeah I think this is still a socially economically and politically a very diverse region and staying the course in terms of ensuring that the people on the street see the benefit of what is good for the country is also good for them to my mind that will always be the challenge and therefore I mean to put it simply inclusive and equitable growth is critical to you know people looking outside their own boundaries. Lady the front here please. Good morning my name is Barbin Zhao I am the Senior Reporter for Publication Court Foreign Direct Investment and I'm representing the Financial Times Group. My two questions well my question is for the two gentlemen who are representing the respective governments the Honourable Deputy Prime Minister from Thailand and the Secretary of State from Philippines. My question is regards to country specific weaknesses and there's not much that's been discussed with regards to that so for example Thailand's GDP contracted in the first quarter of this year by about two percent and so one of the things that I'd like to know is what measures are you putting in place to offset the possible global headwinds that are happening for example the eurozone slowdown and the consequent effect it's having on your respective economies and also one of the things that hasn't been specifically identified is some of the weaknesses in your doing business environments so could you identify to me what some of the weaknesses that you have identified and how you're working to counter these thank you. Which one of you wants to go first? Well I would say that information about the GDP in the first quarter contracted by that percentage as compared to the fourth quarter of last year but if compared to the first quarter of the year before it's still 5.3 percent growth of course we had expected that the year-on-year growth should be somewhat higher but of course I think we all understand that the weaker economies that used to be our important buyers they're not that ready to buy that much from us anymore so that's why when this government stepped into the office a year and a half ago we made very clear that we can't hope that Thailand would be an export led growth as we have been enjoying in the past a decade and a half and more and we cannot be too proud of being a cheap labor country now the country is not suffering with unemployment problem actually unemployment problem in the country unemployment rate in countries as low as 0.6 percent so we have to work to improve the productivity efficiency and hope that our people millions of those people whether in the urban area or in rural area would earn more in order that they can improve the quality of life of cost and also become a better consumer for the products produced in Thailand also outside Thailand so I think it's more than that we realize that we need to change and besides not only the improving the possessing power of the country but we realize that in the past a decade and a half we haven't invest enough in the necessary infrastructure of the country especially in transportation system that's why the government announced the plan to invest as much as 65 billion US dollars in the following seven years to improve all the transportation system of the country I have all the reasons to believe that after seven years or a decade the global economy should be able to solve our weakness problem but in the meantime if Thailand work harder in the area of infrastructure investment it would not only help stabilize our economy in the medium term but it would prepare ourselves to be most ready when the world is ready to move more aggressive in terms of growth so after 2020 the planned investment in the transportation system would be completed and then that's how we look into the immediate term medium term and the long term this is all very briefly yeah if you ask the IFC the Philippines is 138th in the world in terms of ease of doing business and yet we grew at 7.8 percent in the first quarter 6.8 percent last year we're one of the few countries that have grown consistently since the Asian crisis we're among the leaders in BPO we're number four in ship building among the leaders in semiconductors so my question is if you focus on these witnesses then you as a businessman will miss all these opportunities the important thing is to look at the fundamentals of the country what are the fundamental assets of the country sweet spot in terms of demography for the next 30 to 50 years right location right at the heart of what is the most dynamic economic region for the next 30 to 50 years fifth in mineralization right the heart of the coral triangle we're working definitely on this infrastructure challenge regulatory issues but definitely I think despite those so-called weaknesses I think the opportunities are there in the Philippines and the rest of us here could you sum very very briefly the recent weakness in the yen does that make Japanese corporates less likely to be expanding abroad and investing abroad and investing domestically instead very very quickly it's a very delicate question therefore say I think it may take some more time for us to say finalize this currency situation in the world and particularly in Asia and I have so many offices in the world therefore I know euro programs and also the currency itself is very very we have to seriously think about that and give us some time gentlemen over there the fourth row third in hi thank you Ken from Parami Energy local company I'd just like to address my my question to the Mr. Kajima and the you talk about the diversity I fully agree with you diversity make people excited and motivated and for example you know you go to Myanmar down south you have a beautiful beach and we go up and then you have a very sunny experience and then you go to the up north you will have some skiing the resource or something like that so the I just want to ask you the vision of that you have in terms of this that ASEAN network the in the future so how how how's the how's the japan and the the the superpower like japan see this the east Asia economy network in the future and the what are the the the major binding factors and what are the challenges to have this the network infrastructure to be sustainable thank you so much very quickly so yeah in japan say we have already since japanese yen was very high and strong therefore say most of the japanese you know manufacturers have to you know say go out from japan to manufacture the main products say and outside of japan means Asian countries and under such circumstances around the type of technology should be established in japan but the actual manufacturing including parts and so forth are now almost all of them are in say Asian countries therefore now under such circumstances we should collaborate or communicate or human resources should go on back then eventually we'll go to the say right directions that is the current case and maybe I do believe say some more beautiful situations in Asian countries that is my idea anybody else ladies back in the black hello Rowena Anil from Sydney Australia hub of young shapers young global shapers my question relates to the comment that was made at the panel about the importance of building within ASEAN global leaders and I'm wondering what can ASEAN government and business do to really enable young people to grow their capacity who would like to answer that I can pick that up since I think I made that point I think firstly let me start with what companies can do as your business begins to move more and more east which is what's happened you have to have a mindset which says that if you have to have a longer-term perspective on successful running successful businesses developing local talent is a necessity not something that's good to do and so on therefore this over reliance and dependence on bringing expatriates to run your business so for example in our company a lot of our local leaders by the way are indeed local just to give you an example Myanmar which is a business we restarted in 2010 is run by a local person is the Burmese because we do think it's important to have local leadership and develop local talent so it's a mindset firstly and longer-term it serves us well Indonesia we have a local chairman and so on and so forth and that's the way we start a starting position is second is it's not just about leadership how do you really identify leaders early and build capabilities organizational capabilities and capacity we have a system for example where we recruit a thousand interns across the world by the way a majority of them are recruited in the developing markets and the career templates that we create for them are not just building their careers in the local company people like myself I'm a product of exactly that process that I'm describing to you and I think therefore companies have to do their bit as far as countries are concerned it starts really with providing you know it's the educational facilities that you provide and how do you really create the infrastructure for I would say high quality education at least you know at the primary level because that's where it all kind of starts so it's a combination of both and I find that there are lots of countries now engaging with the private sector in terms of generally lifting the skills and capabilities of their people I really do believe the big issue in Asia not just ASEAN but larger Asia is employability we have a large number of graduates coming out but there's no employability to that extent so we have to work together on that agenda very very very quickly Tarik well the sectors that are most impacted by by supply chain barriers are the SMEs and I think if you're thinking about how you develop young leaders and create opportunities going forward I think you have to look at the segments of the economy that are most heavily impacted by these non-trade barriers so I think that's one part of the solution the second obviously is focusing on unlocking the growth potential growth means there's more opportunity for everybody including young leaders to to develop well that concludes that the audience bit I want to just ask one final question of each of you don't spend too long on it please which is what will ASEAN look like in a decade what will it look like and what would you like it to look like in a decade and I think we'll start with Harish ASEAN will continue to be to my mind the biggest economic growth areas in the world and if you're talking about a decade it's not a very long time so I think I'll put my money on ASEAN Gujima-san Yes I think so I have the same ideas in the decade time ASEAN is say in economically the biggest in the world and I'm watching the say ASEAN's economy and Latin America is now going up and also China economy is now but it's still very big and therefore in total ASEAN economy is the biggest in the world that is my idea Kichirat Well I think the effort of ASEAN 10 working together I don't think we try to group ourselves, integrate ourselves and then exclude ourselves from the rest of the world we only believe that once we are working together we can improve the standard practice and governance and rules and regulations also mindset to make it most harmonize among ourselves so I do believe that after a decade all the members will be at the highest standard and once it's highest standard this would be it would be good for all of us for ourselves for the other members in ASEAN also for the world and I believe that we still want to work for the rest of the world to really understand whatever practice we should improve before my departure I have the chance to attend a company a Korean company opening the new hybrid headquarter in Thailand and the majority of the subsidy of that company is actually a Japanese company sending the help except in Japan also the other shareholders happen to be Malaysian so I think some reporters to ask me that why is this happening and they're not opening up the factory in Thailand they're sending products produced from Korea to into Thailand how I would respond so I said I'm very happy if it's right for them to open factory here because we are good enough so be it if it's not let's work with all of them together in the most constructive way Tariq I think 10 years from now we'll probably be saying the same thing that's probably the most exciting investment region opportunity there is all you have to do is look at the a structure of the population countries like Indonesia and realize that you know in 10 years you still won't be able to address the opportunity that that market is going to create intrinsically from its own growth so you're saying ASEAN has a great future in 10 years it'll have a great future that's right CESA find out what well if we don't lose sight of ASEAN centrality I think you'll see an ASEAN with more than double the GDP more than double the per capita with more than double the intra ASEAN trade and with ASEAN achieving its vision of becoming the hub of Asia trade intra Asia trade thank you very much gentlemen please put your hands up for Kajima San of course CESA Puraesima Harish Manwani Kitrat Narong and Tarek Sultan Al-Isra