 Good morning everyone. I'm Karen Davila and I'm moderating this session this morning, which is the ASEAN economic community What is the new context of the ASEAN economic community? What are the struggles in implementing a full ASEAN integration? What are the challenges? Will it be successful? What will be the difference compared to the European Union? Will it really foster one big market of 600 million people that have one common vision? So we do hope you'll be joining our discussion this morning. Our panelists are quite interesting this morning. Before I introduce the rest of our panelists, I'd like first to acknowledge the presence of the Secretary-General of the ASEAN, Li Liung-Min. Good morning to you, sir. And you will be giving opening remarks for the group this morning. Thank you, sir, for joining us. Good morning, ASEAN ladies and gentlemen. I thank you for the opportunity to join you. This is an important session on ASEAN on the future prospects of growth in ASEAN. In particular, on three areas of activities of your immediate concern. The ASEAN economic community of the ASEAN will be loaned by the end of this year. And it will not be something like, I mean, something falling down from the sky. Rather, it will be, I mean, the combination of the process of building the community that is moving to completion. As of now, we have implemented around 91% of all the measures due under the ASEAN blueprint. And actually, basically, a new environment for growth has been being created in ASEAN. In investment, the ASEAN Comprehensive Investment Agreement that ASEAN has adopted in comparison for important areas, namely liberalization, facilitation, protection, and promotion. This agreement is creating a freer and more open environment investment regime based on international best practices. And the key features of this agreement include a single negative approach where restrictions are progressively removed, immediate benefit to ASEAN investors and ASEAN-based foreign investors, and ASEAN member states obligation to make publicly available all relevant laws and regulations on EFDI. And concurrently, ASEAN is working on a number of initiatives pursuant to this agreement, such as establishing an ASEAN investment website to promote ASEAN as a single investment nation, disseminating guidebooks, and conducting fora to help investors learn about the agreement, and improving the agreement by including the mandate to further liberalize the investment regime. The creation of a freer and more open investment regime has brought about substantial improvement. The total EFDI flow to ASEAN reached $122.4 billion US dollars in 2013, and that kept increasing in 2014, amounting to $136.2 billion, or that reflect, I mean, an 11.3% increase. In consumer market improvement, ASEAN has at present a combined market of over 625 million customers, and a combined GDP in 2014 of up to nearly $2.8 billion. And by 2030, ADP expect that ASEAN beneath glass will grow to 54 million people, or more than 60% of the projected population of ASEAN by then. And ASEAN thus is a very competitive position for trade investment and a very strong consumer base. And ASEAN consumer market dynamics in the immediate and middle term will be shaped by a strong growth environment which will raise exposure outcome, income and spending. Under a young population with 50% under the age of 30, and this group will drive consumer spending. A rapid urbanization rate, which shapes consumption patterns and betraying trends, would high rates of growth anticipated in the communication services, consumer electronic products and technologies especially the internet that are changing the lives of the ASEAN citizens. To see these advantages of such shifting dynamics, businesses will have to read out and connect with the ASEAN consumers using the new media and be innovative and alert to us and fast evolving consumer trends and build secure and trusted regional platforms for online reshaping and payment systems. In travel and tourism, ASEAN travel is one of ASEAN's 12 targeted authority sectors for economic integration. The intellectual agreement with the full liberalization of rate and air passenger services and the protocol of the agreement cover all ASEAN by state secondary cities. These agreements also provide rate liberalization in terms of unlimited capacity, frequency and the type of aircraft. The ASEAN single aviation market framework was adopted to intensify the development of the regional aviation sector guiding the work of the ASEAN aviation sector, which includes the alignment of aviation safety and security practices, harmonization and air traffic management. An ASEAN is also reaching out to our partners with China. ASEAN has concluded an air transport agreement with two protocols covering unlimited traffic rights for the third and fourth freedom traffic rights and limited freedom traffic rights. With Japan, with Republic of Korea, and the EU, ASEAN has begun negotiations for such agreements and actually Boeing did the project ASEAN aviation sector to grow at an airport annual rate of 6.7% over the next 20 years. And with that is the connectivity and accessibility. ASEAN will come up to 102 million international tourists in 2014, or an increase of 3% from 2013. Given the rapid development of the aviation and tourism sectors, ASEAN member states have agreed to formulate a non-destructive arrangement to enable other member states to make use of professional regional tourism mechanisms and skill workers through the signing of the MIA on tourism professionals. And already ASEAN is already extending certification to 6000 tourism professionals based on this MIA. In the trade in services, ASEAN very early recognized the importance of integration in the services sector. The ASEAN framework agreement on services was signed back in September 1995, just one and a half years after the conclusion of the general agreement on trade in services. And up to now, ASEAN has concluded eight packages of commitments with the 9-1 now near completion. And work has also begun for the 10 packages. Woodward will see more than 100 sub-chacters committed to liberalization. And work has also begun to enhance the ASEAN framework agreement on services. There would create the regional services integration for the 2015 period. The ASEAN trade in services agreement will take into account the developments like the trade in services agreement in ASEAN's FDA in the AEC blueprint and other emerging regional architectures. With trade in services increasingly liberalized, ASEAN services suppliers can expand their regional cross-border services supply and they can consolidate the client base regionally to utilize the economy of scale. Indeed would set a more conducive environment in 2013. ASEAN exported up to 292 billion dollars and imported nearly 300 billion dollars of services. And on average, ASEAN services export in import grew at 13.4 percent or an 11.8 percent respectively 60 million of the financial crisis in 2008. And also in 2013, ASEAN trade value in services was up to 98 billion US dollars or 16.6 percent increase, I mean occupied up to that percentage of total ASEAN trade in services. So we have only half a year before the deadline for the loan of the AEC. A new or newer environment for growth is already being created. The businesses in ASEAN and ASEAN base are invited to stay and to come to ASEAN. Thank you very much. Liu Liu Min, as secretary general of the ASEAN. Thank you so much, sir, for that. And coming from what he had just said, we just have a few months to go before the full implementation of the ASEAN economic community. Joining our panel this morning, Mr. Mustafa Muhammad is the Minister of Trade and Industry of Malaysia and Malaysia is also chairing ASEAN this year. Oliver Tonbi, he is the director of McKinsey and Company in Singapore. Good morning, sir. Ho-Sing Chan, group managing head of DuPont Singapore. Ricardo Melendez is the chief executive of the Executive International Center of Trade and Sustainable Development. It is a think tank. Lim Cheng-Tek is the chief executive officer of the ASEAN Standard Chartered Bank. Now we have, for our audience, this is also for our audience, you have 10 member nations that are in the ASEAN, all of which are different in terms of development, strength, some have divided them into three. You have the first, which is Singapore, maybe Malaysia and Thailand, then developing right in the middle, Indonesia, Philippines, and then you have Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam. All of this, all of the 10 member nations have different rates of growth. Minister, I'd like to ask you first, come December 2015, what exactly are businessmen expecting when ASEAN goes into full gear? Thank you, Karen. In ASEAN, inclusiveness is very important, and we are all men here. I wish that there's a lady in a panel. We're all quite senior in age. You're the only one who's young, Karen. Anyway, the private sector has got very high expectations. This weekend, ASEAN ministers and leaders are converging in Kuala Lumpur for the summit. We have a summit in the next few days, another summit in November, and at that summit in November, Malaysia would be, you know, is in this position as chair of ASEAN. We would like to declare ASEAN as a community. And as I said, expectations are high. And here in Jakarta, the Regional World Economic Forum, there's been a lot of talk about expectations coming from the private sector. So what do we expect to change? So firstly, I mean, it's about free movement of goods, services and paper. I would say it's not free. If you say free, there's no hassles at the border, but the private sector wants free movement of goods, free movement of services, free movement of people. And that's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. There will be free movement of goods, free services, free movement of people. The kind of things that you have, I mean, there's this expectation that the border is going to be similar. Yes, we've done a lot in order to reduce barriers to the border. There will continue to be customs, immigration will be there. So that's one perception that we would like to dispel from the private sector. Having said that, our priority in ASEAN is to ensure that we facilitate trade, movement of people, immigration, and passports. One issue that we've been dealing with is the issue of standards, regulations, different kind of standards in various ASEAN countries. We're working very hard. And we want to, in the area of non-tariff barriers, we would like to reduce as much as possible. So, between now and December, six, seven months ago, we were working very hard in order to reduce all those barriers to trade, non-tariff barriers, trying to get more standardized, of course, strengthening institutions. We have six, seven months ago. Yes, we're going to get there, but it is work in progress. All right. Sing, I'd like to... We've got to be realistic. Realistic. Okay, we have to be realistic. I'd like to ask you, Sing, what are the challenges? For example, he said a free, absolutely free is not possible. Free your movement of goods, free your exchange of labor, free your, but you're a businessman. What do you experience? Okay, let me start out by saying that the AEC has made quite a bit of progress in the area of tariff reduction. As companies, we can feel that, we can see that and it enables the free flow of goods and services. On the other hand, I recently read an article in a survey that talked about, you know, a survey of business people in Singapore and say, do you know the opportunities and challenges posed by AEC and more than 80% of the people said no. They have no idea what it is. They don't know the opportunities. They don't know where the threats are. So the connection between the AEC initiative that are led by primarily the government side are not translated to the business side sufficiently to enable people to know, understand what to do. So that is one. Second thing, with all due respect around, you know, open skies and policies on tourism and all that, I feel that there is a very large segment of the ASEAN population that is not impacted sufficiently by the AEC. And this is the agriculture sector. And you know, in the last few days, we have talked about agriculture extensively. In the morning, we have a session on food security. And on Sunday, we had a whole day session amongst the people in ASEAN to talk about how we can enhance the food security and agriculture productivity in the region. But if I look at the AEC, I am hard-pressed to find out what aspects of that. With some minor exceptions, I would get, I would grant that their MRL, for example, harmonization of MRL, which is good. But by and large, not a whole lot to do with that. So let me give you a few examples. On agriculture. On agriculture. So the CLMV countries, agriculture is about 25% roughly, on average. CLMV, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Laos. So it's about 25% of the GDP. The rest of the ASEAN countries, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, about 10%. China, 10%. So you can think about this and say, well, you know, countries are going to move inevitably towards more urbanization. And therefore, the component of GDP as represented by agriculture is going to start to go down over time. And more people are probably going to move towards the urban areas coming from the farms. So how do we address that issue? And at the same time, you know, we know that food demand is going up. And by 2050, we're going to have 70% more food needed in the world. So as you have limited acreage, you have less people in the farm. You have people going to the city, and you have less water, and all the issues with climate change. How do we deal with the agriculture sector? I feel that this is not yet perhaps a low-hanging fruit that AEC has tackled, but ought to be tackled from 2016 onwards. All right. And Oliver Singh mentions a very, actually it's a very big and major part of what technically the ASEAN economic community should be addressing, which is the common vision for agriculture and food security. Do you believe coming from McKinsey that the AEC and the ASEAN address the real needs of the ASEAN region if it wants to be one common marketplace? So listen, I think the answer is yes. And I choose to be an optimist, and I am a realist. Let's be clear. You asked earlier, is the AEC going to be a success? Yes. The AEC, I think, has already achieved many things. I don't think anything's going to change overnight come the end of the year. This is not a switch that goes on and off. This is a work in progress. It's a journey. And if you look at, you know, 10 countries that are very different in nature, right, very different in nature, actually have something that is starting to resemble one market. Are we going to get there? Listen, it's going to be years and decades until we're there. This is not going to be the European Union number two. I don't think that's in the vision either. Why did you say that? Why don't you think? Why can't it be the European Union number two? I'm just curious. The countries are just too different. You look at the populations of the different countries and the stages of development and the needs of the people. You know, the idea of free flow of people across borders I think is going to be a tough one just as an example. But I don't think that's the important thing. I think the important thing is that, you know, this is moving in the right direction. You look at now a huge market, 2.4 trillion GDP under the AEC. You look at significant reduction of tariffs that has happened. But the realist also says, listen, there are many more barriers, many small barriers if you will, to go. There are different halal standards between Malaysia and Indonesia. I don't know why. There are different, the recognition of different professions between countries isn't happening. So there are many of these barriers that need to be removed for this to realize its full potential. Cenk, did you want to say something? Go ahead, Ricardo. Thank you, Karen. I just want to build on your question also the statement before that you made about the comparison of the ASEAN project with the European Union. And I think I'd like to qualify what we just heard by saying that at the end of 2015 it certainly would not be a European Union. But it would have the basis perhaps with an optimistic perspective to build on its institutions and on its freedoms to become something like the European Union. And I think the European Union is not a bad benchmark to follow. Now, one of the things that you see in ASEAN is that you need still institutions both at the national level as well as the ASEAN level to really move the Union and really take advantage of the regional markets and provide the kind of welfare benefits for all that people really aspire to. But I think also behind that is I think the notion and again I'm also very optimistic on this that without ASEAN or without ASEAN, I think these economies are going to really boom in the next few years. You have demographics on their favor and you have a growing financial well-being that has been distributed in many ways across these countries. You also have many competitive advantages to the ASEAN region. You have the elements really to grow into a very rich region. But more importantly, I think ASEAN is located at the center of the most dynamic region in the world in terms of economics. And again, looking forward to 2025 and 2050, we know that the world is going to tilt towards this region. This is where you're going to have to produce the food, as it was said before, and many of the goods for the rest of the world. All right. Now coming from what Ricardo said, Cenk Tech, you have most of the market moving to this side of the world. Comparing it to the European Union, one of the major comments about the European Union is that they're built to help each other. Do you feel that in the ASEAN? Do you feel that the ASEAN is built to actually help smaller countries become more progressive? We do have Singapore, you have Thailand, and you have Malaysia leading the pack. But do you feel that the ASEAN builds actually the roadmap to lift up the lesser progressive countries? Thank you. I think if you look at the grouping of ASEAN and the framework of ASEAN, it does provide for the more developed and bigger country to support the smaller and developing country. But I would like to take it a different dimension and building on the point that Cenk has mentioned earlier, which is this awareness of ASEAN and the benefit of ASEAN. And among businesses, I think there is a disproportionate understanding of the opportunity. What do I mean? A very particular important segment of business across all the 10 ASEAN member states today do not have sufficient knowledge or access to that knowledge of what the opportunities are. And I'm referring to the SME segment. The SME segment is a very important segment across ASEAN. They are big job creators in some of the ASEAN economy. They account for almost 90% of all the employment. And not only that, they are a big contributor to economy. So the local businesses within the 10 ASEAN member states have in my mind a disproportionately lower understanding of the opportunity and the benefit of ASEAN. Today you see most of the forums well attended by multinationals, government agencies, and they share the information freely. But who is to share this information down to the SMEs so that they can also benefit from this building of a common production platform, free movement of trade and services across the 10 member states. Okay. Now, you can, yeah, because is it really easy for SMEs to do business across the region? I was just going to comment on that. I think it's spot on, right? I think there's, one is the understanding is different than perhaps lesser. Not only that, but you know, that many of the SMEs that, you know, we talked to, they're actually even worried about some parts of the AEC. They say, listen, there's going to be more competition. So I think, you know, there absolutely is a need to get more SMEs on board, if you will, because our belief is that the best SMEs, this is a great, for the best SMEs, is a great opportunity, right? The ones that are, if they are producing, you know, goods that are required, that are in demand elsewhere, this is a fantastic opportunity. But right now, many of the SMEs are worried. Another point that I would add though, is that across the 10 member ASEAN state, you do have various government initiatives to promote and to support SMEs. Perhaps if you build a pan ASEAN kind of framework to support and to promote SMEs, that will be, that will go a long way towards reaping some of this benefit of AEC to smaller businesses. Now the ASEAN operates by consensus. I think you can answer this minister. Is one of the comments I've heard is, it seems to be voluntary in nature. Is there some kind of a scorecard where you can actually hold to account the countries that are ASEAN members and say, you know what, we talked about this last year, and how are you doing with how you opened up this regulation? Or how did you streamline it this year? Because there are all these meetings, but then at the end of the day, great commitments. But do you actually score each country and say, you are not performing up to par with what you promised last year? Thank you, Karin. Before I move to this subject, let me expand a bit on the SMEs. I mean, there's opportunities and challenges, of course. The big boys, there's no problem. They can venture. The big companies from Singapore know what the opportunity is. There are in Vietnam, Malaysian companies, though, what's available in Thailand. So you divide the big and small. So the issue is the smaller guys, smaller enterprises. And you're right, there's a fear in the minds of some of the small enterprises that my business is going to be totally wiped up when January 2016 comes. So what's important is to build this confidence that there are winners and losers, but overall there's going to be a lot of gain. So it's important to get this buy-in from the smaller people, the small minimum enterprise, that they're going to benefit from closer economic integration. So that's a challenge for us. One is creating awareness. Number two is convincing them that ASEAN is the right approach, closer economic integration is the best way forward in order to lift living standards, including getting SMEs to be on board and be part of the system. On this scorecard, we do that. Sechgen just mentioned. It's just so that you can never target. We have what we call the ASEAN scorecard. What we do, I mean, we meet and we go through. There's kind of a naming and shaming. I just give you one example. In the era of non-tariff barriers, what we've done is to share what these barriers are, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam. This is on the website. The mere act of putting that on the website has prompted some of us to resolve some of these issues. So I'm just giving you a small example where it has worked. But having said that, of course, we want to move faster. So we do have a scorecard and we know where we are. We are determined, we're committed to reduce them. But of course, we've got to be realistic. It is a journey. What I'm sharing with you, Karen, and fellow panellists is that we do this on a regular basis. We know where we are and we have got this 10% to go before we get to December 2015. We know that we're not going to get 100%, which is realistic. We're at 90 now, 1991. So this 10% is, of course, the more difficult part. And we're going to get to the almost 100% to this process of consultation and we do have this scorecard. And so far, which country isn't doing too good on the scorecard? We know what these countries are, but... No, I don't. I mean, we're meaning... You're in the panel. But there are practical problems. We know what these problems are. Some of us are, of course, quite nationalistic. We've got some domestic pressures coming from several directions. I'll give you an example and all of you can comment, which is one small example. Indonesia, for example, has refrained from ratifying the ASEAN multilateral agreement for full liberalization of air freight services, because, of course, it needs to protect its domestic aviation industry for regional competitors. The Philippines went through this, and by force, of course, the Open Skies policy went through so much political controversy locally. But this is a very, very simple one. It's one. How do you deal, Oliver and Ricardo, please? All of you can comment. Aren't individual laws of each country, isn't this one major hindrance to really going on one common region as a marketplace, frankly speaking? I would like to comment on that. The pace of progress of ASEAN is dependent on the process we choose, or the leaders choose to do, and the process is a consensus process. A consensus process, by nature, needs to get consensus and it needs to get alignment of all the countries involved, and that requires a balance between their national interests and the AEC interests. And that process, unless there is a speedier process, which is if there is a strong leadership, whether it's individual leadership within ASEAN, whether it's a secretariat, whether it's a personal leadership, or it's a country leadership, or it's a person that chairs, or the country that chairs that ASEAN particular year, those leadership can progress it faster. But the pace we are seeing is a reflection, a result of what we choose to do as a whole. And so that's where we are. Now, the other point I want to make is that just now you talk about the national laws and regulations. Here is one thing, go back to agriculture sector that we have in common with the aviation sector. We also have ten laws and regulations in ASEAN countries. Each one is tremendously difficult to manage it through. Some of our products that companies like us devoting billions of dollars to invent takes in ASEAN between one year to six years to approve. So this is the kind of difficulty we have to go through each of the countries. And if we had a uniform standard as Minister Mustafa said, it would help so much. In fact, the whole agriculture sector has a great opportunity to get where it is. Can you give one example, for example, give me two countries that you needed to pass through and how many permits did you go through this one and how many this other one? Because, for example, in Singapore, it takes, I think, in the last session, I had last year to put up a power plant in Singapore, took Manipangilinan three weeks to have it signed. In the Philippines, you need 165 signatures. So I'm curious. Go for it. It's not too bad. I'm in the sample of Minister Mustafa. I'm not sure I want to name specific countries, but I can tell you that the big major countries in ASEAN sometimes are the ones that have difficulty. Because when you come to agriculture, it is a very politically charged subject. That's probably why AEC is not dealing with it as a first venture. But it needs leadership to step up. Because we're talking about 55% of the ASEAN population are living in the rural areas. And that's the majority of the ASEAN people. They're not traveling. They're not crossing countries to work in another country. They're trying to survive, get their life higher. They're trying to find ways to go into an urban area so that their income can improve. How do we deal with this group of people as the ASEAN economy community so that we can lift their standards at the same time lifting the standards of the whole region? Three very quick points. Firstly, we are at three different levels of development. To set the record straight, Singapore and Brunei. As a top man, you've let out Brunei, very important country. In the middle will be Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. In the middle, the bottom will be Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. That's number one. So for example, when it comes to tariffs, we have taken this into account that for the born developed ASEAN states, 1,1,2010 tariffs have been eliminated. But for the other countries, it's 2018, 1,1,2018. So in the system, we're recognizing different levels of development. And for these other countries, 0 tariffs, I'm not talking about non-tariff barriers, 0 tariffs, 1,1,2018. That's point number one. Point number two is, this is 2015, a very important year and I'm confident that come 2020 for example. The kind of things that we're hearing in a panel, many of these things will be resolved. So it is a journey. It's not going to happen overnight. So we've got to be realistic. We all have domestic issues to deal with. That's point number two. Point number three. There's been healthy engagement, consultation between government and private sector in every country and we're getting more and more interactive and we're getting lots of feedback. And I must say that the private sector has been very positive, constructive in providing us with the feedback that has motivated us to move even faster. So I would encourage those of you, all of you from the private sector here, to keep on telling us governments what we need to do. I mean, this is 2015, 2020, I'm confident that more things will happen. The issue is why 2020? Why not 2016, 2017? I mean that's the issue. Thank you. I do agree with what you said about this being a journey and I think we should take a much more practical approach to some of these challenges because it's not that we're going to wake up 2016 first gen and everything is going to be different. It is a start of a journey and there will be speed bumps on this journey. I think the focus will be how do we reduce and how do we eliminate some of the speed bumps as we progress to your point, minister, whether do it faster or do it by 2020. I think that's where we need consensus among the 10 member states. Ricardo, go ahead and then Oliver. Well, there are so many points that have been made here but on this specific point, so let me go back again to the example of the European Union that you mentioned before. It has taken since 1992 really to calibrate how that market works. Since they set up what could be somewhat equivalent to the 2015 AEC deadline. They were a bit more advanced at that time but I go back to my point about institutions. You're talking about winners and losers. There's a great concern here about what would happen with labor that is displaced, not only SMEs but generally speaking what happens with the big differences that you have in wages and salaries and other conditions in the cost of factors. Again, in the EU, as it happens also in the US, you have mechanisms for adjustment that have been put in place. One of the biggest expenditures, 10% of the budget of the EU is what is called the European Social Fund. The European Social Fund has been through the years organized in such a way that it responds specifically to the kind of displacements and to the kind of distortions that will come, if you like, to national economies from integration. For instance, that adoption of the notion of what it's called the flexible labor markets. With this notion, the idea is that you don't have a job for life, you have work for life and then there are mechanisms again within the European Union itself to try to help workers adapt to innovating the workplace to retrain in such a way that again you can deal with this losers and winners. A last quick point on SMEs is that SMEs in ASEAN, if they think about the way in which the global economy works today, they would understand that on one hand you're providing them with larger markets once you integrate, but on the other hand you're providing them with the opportunity to be integrated into value chains, into supply chains, both at the regional level but also even at the global level. Value chains word again ASEAN is one of the big champions in the world. It's the heart of what is called factory Asia really today. With the rising cost of labor in China, there are great opportunities now in this region to really be integrated into those global markets. So SMEs need to be told by governments, if governments are believers in this integration, they should be much better at selling the benefits of that integration by highlighting these kind of opportunities. Very good points. I'll take up some of your points later. Oliver? I just want to say we've analyzed some of the different costs around the region. What is some of the opportunity here if we reduce some of these barriers, the non-tariff barriers? Just to pick one area. In many manufacturing sectors, we see that you can reduce costs by 20%, which means that you can have 20% lower price to your customers by optimizing the whole supply chain. For example, you look at US for some specific numbers. The ports and terminal handling days in Singapore, it takes one day, whereas in Indonesia, Philippines takes three days. You look at customs clearance, technical controls, Malaysia, Singapore, one day, Vietnam, Myanmar, three and a half, four days. This translates into real costs. And we've estimated that at order magnitude 20%, obviously, depending on which sector we're talking about and so forth. These are real costs. Oliver, are you able to achieve that today or you're talking about the future state? This is if we manage to continue to chip away at some of these non-tariff barriers. So not today yet? Not today. Minister, do you talk about these things, for example, something as practical as that? Benchmarking and sharing of best practices is very much part of ASEAN. We see each other a lot. Of course, we have these numbers. And the peer pressure is another. This is not something that... Peer pressure. So Singapore, Malaysia does things perhaps a little bit more efficient in other countries. So that puts pressure on other countries. And that's one very powerful motivation for us to move faster. We want to make ASEAN a very comparative economic region. We want to attract FDIs. Last year, it was about $120 billion. Already, China is about $104 billion. ASEAN, $122 billion FDIs. I mean, we want to make ASEAN even more attractive. You imagine, I mean, now it's one day in Malaysia, Singapore, customs clearance, three, four days in other parts of ASEAN. If all of us through peer pressure and benchmarking can move up and improve, you can imagine the FDIs, the trade we can do. So these are the low hanging fruits. But that drives us, that motivates us to do better in terms of announcing productivity and efficiency. All right. Now, I want your thoughts on this, because Ricardo talked about the European Social Fund. A survey was done recently on actually constituents, members, residents who live in ASEAN and three out of four didn't even know what ASEAN meant. Okay. Three out of four didn't know what ASEAN meant. Now, something common. People know when the residents in Europe, when they see the European Union flag, they know they recognize it. There's a European Union parliament. But that took a long time. Took a long time. So this is where I'm going. Do you think this is necessary? In other words, for the branding of ASEAN itself, you know, to move it to that period where it is a legitimate, strong region and you are already branding it as a region that has a common vision. Do you all think, give me your thoughts. What about an ASEAN parliament? People have asked this, an ASEAN flag. Foreigners going into ASEAN, we don't even have a Schengen visa. There's no ASEAN visa. If you're a foreigner coming in, you'd have to get your own visa going to Thailand, your own visa going to the Philippines. I mean, they seem small, but in the end, they contribute to that common vision of a region. Tell me your thoughts. In, of course, on travel and tourism, it will, it's happening and will happen one day. The ASEAN passport. I'm pretty sure a passport and a visa. So that's not a big issue. It is an issue now, but it will happen. On the European parliament, of course, we have different systems, as you know, democracy, we have elections, we have monarchy. How would you do it then? That's right, now you're at home. We have started by having interaction among members of parliament, where there's parliament. So here again, it is a journey. I think it is important to have some kind of a political institution, but I don't see this happening in the foreseeable future. Having an ASEAN parliament, but what we've done is a regular gathering of representatives from all those countries. And it is an evolution, and I, it's going to happen. It's a matter of time, closer political integration as well. So on travel, there are challenges now, but I think it's going to happen. And the issue again is, you know, why can't it happen now? Why should we 2020? And so there's a lot of pressure coming from the private sector. So it will happen. And this will be a big boost to tourism and travel in the region. What would help? Go ahead. Any suggestions? So now you feel anything that could solidify the ASEAN image and the ASEAN brand? I think to me, the more important goal, at least in the near term, is really the economic integration, rather than all this, I would call them nice to have rather than must have as a start. So you talk about ASEAN identity, the ASEAN parliament, I think that could be something that we decide, say, if it's desirable, and then maybe at a later stage. But at this stage, I think there's much more to begin by fostering a closer economic integration. And one needs to look at ASEAN as in terms, in economic terms, that the whole is greater than the sum of part. So if you can pull all the 10 member states to work together towards closer economic integration, I think this will generate employment opportunity, attract investment, and to a six point help create wealth and improve the livelihood of the ASEAN population. I think there are, economy is important, and I think is one of the most very important parts of ASEAN. But I don't think we should get forget the other things either. Professor Kishor from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy says that one of the remarkable things about ASEAN is that there has not been a major war in the last several decades. And part of the reason for that is the increased collaboration cooperation inside of ASEAN. So I do think there are other parts in addition to the economy. I actually, I think one area is even greater collaboration on topics like, you know, culture, sports, arts, because I think that would actually help promote the positive feeling of ASEAN. So I think there's room on other areas too. I agree with that. No, I think, again, following on that thought that, and I'm becoming a broken record, but you started with the comparison with Europe. But ASEAN, as in the case was the case with the European Union, was created to promote peace, stability, democracy. And it has been incredibly successful. And that's how it's been seen from abroad. Now the next step, it's an economic integration. And that's where it is. It's taken a long time. It's been a complex process. Right now, the region is not what the academics call spaghetti ball is really noodles ball, which is very complex. Now in the larger Asia region, you have close to 190 bilateral agreements between countries and about 70 other regional agreements between countries. Now all that needs to be simplified. And that's what would happen with the ASEAN economic community for this region. And that's a very big step forward. Now you need what you said before, even before you get into the other dimensions of integration, the political dimension and all, you need what you said before. You need, again, the big countries in the region, particularly, but it's equally important for everyone, to believe in the project of integration and then to sell that to its societies. And to sell it, you need a great deal of effort. It doesn't happen from one day to the other. You need the farmers and the small and medium enterprises and investors and just the consumers anywhere in Asia to understand what the integration of ASEAN is going to do for each of them. And again, for that, you probably need also a stronger ASEAN-wide institutions, which is also my point from the beginning. That's something that is very important. It's perhaps the next step after you finish with this 2015 blueprint. If I could, yeah, pick up on Ching's point. You think about a factory worker sitting in Indonesia who has no notion what ASEAN is because they have not touched by ASEAN. They don't read the papers. They don't get the communication. They have no idea what ASEAN is. Right. They don't get the benefit. Now if the ASEAN is able to help that factory to expand its production and goods are selling to Thailand, going to Vietnam, this worker all of a sudden sees, oh, what I make is going overseas. And my job is expanded. My factory is expanded. We have more opportunities then they can see ASEAN. What is ASEAN? How is it impacting them? That's the economic factor on that individual. I'll give you two very quick examples. Malaysian companies, small-medium enterprises, they saw some materials from Indonesia. So they fly Asia, go to Bandung Surabaya, buy some of the agricultural products, which are used as raw materials, which are in short supply. We used to produce them, but we're no longer competitive. So ASEAN SMEs, I mean Malaysian SMEs are already benefiting from sourcing some of these requirements from Indonesia. Number one. Number two, we have weddings, all of us, family weddings, and you need presents. And if you buy from Malaysia, you might cost about two, three times higher. So what some Malaysians do, they take Asia, they go to Ho Chi Minh City, for example. And what costs say five dollars in Malaysia costs one dollar in Ho Chi Minh City. So these are the benefits that SMEs do not quite know, but in actual fact, they're reaping the benefits of ASEAN economic integration. The fact that there are zero tariffs when they land in Malaysian airport, bring a product from Bandung Surabaya or Ho Chi Minh City, they're no taxes. And that goes in the pockets of the of the of the only Malaysia. And so it's happening everywhere. So these are some of the clear benefits. And you have what you need to do is to tell them that you're already reaping the benefits of closer ASEAN economic integration. Those are the good things, of course, there are challenges as well. I'm not saying that there are no challenges. And I think this peace and prosperity, I think it's important just to set the record straight. The political, economic, social, cultural, these are the three pillars of ASEAN. So we're moving together. I mean, we're the political community, we're declining ASEAN as a community. Based on those three pillars, we're not saying we're going to declare ASEAN as an economic community. We're doing all three at the same time. Political community, you know, greater peace, prosperity in the region, economic community and social, cultural community. That's happening at the end of this year on all three fronts. Good. In a few minutes, we'll be opening the floor for questions. We have a few minutes for questions. So please raise your hand. We have a director on the floor who could be giving you the microphone. You have a question, sir. Two questions from three, four. My name is Srinivas Ram based in Zurich in Switzerland. I think there are quite a few topics that have been talked about about ASEAN as a joint force. But I think these could be divided into two different categories. One is becoming a stronger force together from an outside perspective. So you compete with India's and China's and late times and go to the market in the West and say we are a joint force. And you talked about FDI is coming in. The other aspect is more regional where you focus on how you benefit within the group and you're not worried about too much about the outside world. So from the vision perspective, minister, you talked about which is your more dominant action at this point in time. Are you more concerned about how we are benefiting within the ASEAN community or you're more focused on how do we present ourselves as a much stronger force to the outside community? That's a great question. The three dimensions, the internal and external, internal will be the dynamics within the 10 ASEAN member states. There's more intra-ASEAN trade, more intra-ASEAN investment. For example, intra-ASEAN investment is about 20 percent now. It used to be quite small. Malaysian investing in Indonesia, Indonesia investing in Malaysia used to be very small. That's growing. Intra-ASEAN trade about 25 percent and we hope that will grow. This has been a very important outcome of close economic integration and these numbers will grow. What is your more dominant focus? External is important. As I said, more than 120 billion FDIs last couple of years come to us. That's important. We want to make ASEAN. This is important for jobs. Trade is very important. All of us are very open economies, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand. These are very open economies. External dimension is important. In light of China and India, of course, it will become even more important. I would say, of course, it's both. It's unfair for me to say that the domestic dimension is more important, because we are very open. We depend on FDIs. We depend on trade. Malaysia is a trade-dependent economy. The same is to Singapore and Vietnam. We want to do this in parallel. As much as we build our domestic resilience, increasing Intra-ASEAN trade, we want to engage with the world. China, India, these countries are important. Europe and America are also important. If you ask me, we want to do this in parallel, strengthening the internal dynamics, at the same time strengthening our links with the outside world in as far as state investments are concerned. Before the next question, I just wanted to get your thoughts on this. This is going to be very quick. China isn't a member of the ASEAN, and yet all of the ASEAN member countries trade with China the most. If you've been watching the news, there's been an issue, of course, with China's very aggressive reclamation activities in the South China Sea and the contested territories of so many ASEAN-claimed countries. I was, I wanted to ask you, should ASEAN speak as, would it help for ASEAN to speak as a group, as you're smiling? When it comes to something as controversial, for example, as China, because you have the United States speaking, which we're in the United States is far off our region, but because of the pivot to Asia, they have more interest, but ASEAN, ASEAN we're in, it is the neighbor, and then it's very mum, it has not issued a strong statement on anything. All of you please give me your thoughts. We start with our president. You talk about political, economic, social, this is a political question probably. Absolutely, because the thing about having, to be one common group, all of this trade, economy, even the geopolitical aspect, that all goes into it. So I want to ask your thoughts on that. Let's start with Ricardo, you're a think tank. So, should ASEAN have one stand? Well, I live in Geneva, I don't live here, and I want to be able to come back, as well as to China. You will, you will. And so that goes with the response. I'm a big believer of liberal economics, and I think that by integrating more and more with China, you're probably going to get into a situation. But my question was about that. Right, between the region and China, that would hopefully buffer it and soften those tensions. So my response would be yes, of course, a strong integrated ASEAN would be a much better partner for China, too. Okay, that's a good one. Any, Oliver? Well, listen, I think it's one of the bigger worries in the relationship with China and what's happening in South China Sea, as well as other geopolitical issues around the world. I think it's one of the bigger worries many folks have. Listen, I don't know what the right answer to your question is, whether you should speak up louder. I think the ASEAN way is to have more dialogues and try to resolve things before they escalate. And I believe that is happening, and I'm sure there are others that are more qualified in the room to answer such questions. In the room? Well, ideally, we should be speaking with one voice. Ideally. But that's not happening because it's a very complicated issue, and we would prefer this to be discussed bilaterally. Of course, we have the ASEAN Foreign Ministry's process, which is actively engaged on this. It is a delicate subject. China is a very important country to all of us, and peace and stability is very important, and of course, we do not want to rock the boat. Whatever we do, we want to ensure that there's peace, stability in the region. That's very essential for the survival, long-term survival of ASEAN, peace, stability. So whatever we do, that's bottom line. We want to ensure that there's peace, stability in the region. But I appreciate you. You're very diplomatic, but quite forthright. Okay, next question, sir. I'm Farad Forbes from Forbes Marshall in India. I have a question. There are many other economic cooperation agreements, like most not notable would be the EC, for example. Are there any aspects of such an agreement which one would want to avoid in the ASEAN context? Are there any aspects of any learnings from that which one would wish to be cautious about? It'd be interesting to hear the response on that. And just a very quick comment on SMEs. There was a comment made earlier about SMEs and the concern that SMEs would have about the opening up of the economies and tariffs coming down. Our own example in India, when we had liberalization 20 years ago, tariffs came down very significantly. And actually SMEs did fine. They did fine. The increased competition actually brought out the best in them. So I would just like to make that as a comment. Okay, who would like to answer his question? Any learnings from EC? Go ahead, Ricardo. So two quick responses of something that is much more complex, but I'd say in the European space the monetary union probably has not yet proven to be the most wise of decisions. But where I come from, I come from Colombia, from South America. We've had a mix of experiences with integration. We started before you started here with what was called the Andean community. Then we learned that if you don't have identity of purpose between the members, this is going to disintegrate very easily. That's one point. The second point is that we build the community on protecting and building big walls around us and then using import substitution as a means for development. And that didn't work at all. And so we have to shift 180 degrees. I was part of that team that went into that shift. And the shift to 180 degrees has now resulted in something that is much more beneficial to the members of what is now called the Pacific Alliance, which is a set of countries that are identified in their purpose, which are going into deeper integration similar to what you're doing here. You started actually with a very interesting element which was bringing together the stock exchanges and then moving on into other types of integration. And they have very similar aims to what you have here. But I think that the big lesson from the past there is that you need absolute identity of purpose. And that's what I said before. You need this Asian economic community to be one of believers. You want the big ones and the small ones and the richer ones to believe in what you're doing. You talk about the freedoms of air traffic. Indonesia has got about 16 major airports, but Singapore's got one. And there's a disparity in the exchange that you can have. But you have to think about the wider welfare gains and then the wider trade-offs between different types of concessions, if you like, to the integration. So you have to believe in that integrated market for the market to happen. I think that's really the big lesson. I think in Europe, just thinking very quickly, the other thing that I would say very personally is that there's a certain size for an integrated market beyond what, beyond that size, you start getting into trouble. So is ASEAN the right size? I think that's why I like ASEAN because I think you have then the possibility of going into this art set, which is the ASEAN Class 6. But in different terms, it's not about an economic community, right? And that's okay. It would give an ASEAN economic community, would actually give this region great strength to integrate through trade agreements with their neighbors and with the rest of the world. Okay. Good one. Next question. After, sir, then you. Yeah. I'm Jeff Litman and I'm with the Global Agenda Council on the Future of Tourism. But I want to ask the panel and particularly the minister a question about the potential for ASEAN around an elephant in the room that, to my amazement, not one person has mentioned. And that is the issue around being a catalyst for green growth. Because this year, three heads of state summits culminating with a carbon climate related summit, which is not just another issue. It's an existentialist issue. All the countries in ASEAN have got green growth strategies. There is outside ASEAN, but in this region, a green growth institute in Korea. And it seems to me that if you take a strategic view, you have a huge opportunity, not only for a global leadership position, but to benefit in so many other areas, green jobs and education. So I'd like to see if there's any comment on what is really a change making potential. All right. That's a good one. Is ASEAN particular about green growth? Are you making genuine moves? Is there a game changer on that? Yes. ASEAN is very diverse, forest and many parts of ASEAN. We've got lots of assets, minerals, and we're learning a lot from our friends. That's good collaboration, I think, in forestry between ASEAN and Korea, for example. And indeed, I mean, we need to identify what these areas are, where there's common ground. And certainly green growth is not very controversial. Is it a priority, I mean, honestly? It is not yet a priority at this point in time, because we're focusing, when we talk about political, economic, social, cultural education, I mean, that appears to be, those things appear to be our priorities. But this is something that we can latch on there, where there's a lot of convergence, and certainly in the context of climate change, we can play a leadership role in as far as green growth is concerned. All right, another question from the floor. I think this, we'll have the gentleman first in front. Do we still have time for another question, or this is the last question? My apologies to the others. My name is Jacob Robbins. I live in Singapore. I'm chief executive of a company called Emitera that does investments in agribusiness, and also representing a private equity fund called Olympus Capital in the same space. My question relates to agricultural tariffs, something that Mr. Ho referenced earlier during the discussion. The comment I want to make is that instead of trying to square the circle, we should perhaps be attempting to circle the square, much like the design of this room. And by that I mean, let's call a spade a spade. We know that there are issues between those who lead and those who lag and those who have nothing to lose in terms of granting market access. So as an investor, we have confused signals about, from an agricultural perspective, where to invest? Should I invest in a Thailand where my produce will get easy access to say an Indonesia? Or should I be investing in Indonesia where I can expect to have some degree of market protection for the next five or 10 years? So why not set a timetable for agricultural produce in particular that reflects this reality as opposed to setting yourself up to fail, manage the expectations and lay out a timetable that's more relevant, more practical, instead of having one date where there is this expectation of normalizing all tariffs, which we all know in reality is going to be a challenge. Can I ask you the question? It's quite interesting. Yeah. Why didn't you think of investing in Myanmar or Vietnam or Laos? Why do I not? No, it's on the horizon. I'm just curious. Yeah. No, it's on the horizon. I mean, every country is unique. Every country has got its own challenges. But even if I were to invest in a country like a Myanmar, I'd be doing it for purposes of exploiting the potential of the domestic market, but equally trying to raise productivity there to access a market which I might not be able to access within ASEAN. So if tariff protection is going to be there in Indonesia for something that I can produce in a Myanmar, it's going to send me a mixed signal. So my question is why not lay out the tariff structure for ag produce in a way that reflects what is going to happen, right? Is that possible? I think you're the only one in the room who can answer that too. I think calling a spade a spade, I think that that's a very important principle. And agriculture is a very sensitive subject in many parts of the world, more sensitive in the developed parts of it. Having said that, Malaysian companies are here in Indonesia investing in the big way, in plantations. Malaysian companies are in Myanmar, investing in rubber. And because that's the overall picture that you've painted, but investments, that's quite a lot. Can you lay out? He's asking, can you lay out? Yeah. I mean, there's a proposal. I must say I'm not too familiar with what's happening on a cultural front, but I agree with you that you need to call a spade a spade. And in respect of tariffs and non-tariff barriers, I mean, in my area of responsibility, we have laid out what this challenge is. We have a blueprint, we have a plan for tariffs and non-tariff barriers, and we have a plan, we come up with a plan on SM development. So I don't see a major obstacle in having a similar kind of blueprint or plan for agriculture. This is why I think you should be able, if you were to suggest one, I mean, one major recommendation to the ASEAN secretariat on what to tackle when it comes to agriculture, what would it be? That would be the game changer. Yeah. So first I go back to the point that we need to lift agriculture to the centerpiece of AEC discussion agenda. And within that, I would say work on harmonization of regulations around the region so that we can improve for safety. Harmonization does not mean relaxation. It is actually a very, very rigorous process that all the member countries agree that they can use the same standards, the same tools, and then allow these new registration products to come in with minimum hindrance. And I think that would go a long way to allow the farming community to have the opportunity to bring in the best products, the highest knowledge content products into the country, into the region. All right. I want to thank you for that, Singh. We don't have enough time, but I'd like to ask just a very, very brief closing statement from each of our panelists this morning. I think one clear message that we got from all our panelists and even questions from the audience is even with limitations, boundaries, differences, the ASEAN makes a good marketplace. It makes one good economic community, if done in the right way. I think identity of purpose was a very clear message that you can get from all issues, whether it's agriculture, tourism. If you have one identity and purpose that benefits the whole region, then you have more chances of the ASEAN actually becoming more successful. But as the minister has said, free doesn't mean free. It's freer. And I think that's the key word this morning when it comes to the ASEAN economic community. Maybe one quick, one quick statement from each of you. What do you think would make ASEAN really work if you were to put it in one sentence? I think strong institutions, both at the national and at the ASEAN white level, that respond really to the fears that people have of integration and again ensure the well-functioning of the market. So competition policy, the kind of social and labor policies that I mentioned before. And obviously, all this package of inclusiveness as well as a direction towards sustainability, green growth. Ricardo Melendez Ortiz, thank you very much, sir. Shenk-Tek. I think the point that Ricardo has made, I think we need to talk more about achievement that we make under the grouping. So once we have launched this from December 2015, let's celebrate some of the successes that we have achieved and success beget success. I like that. Celebrate the successes we've achieved, success beget success. Thank you very much, Shenk-Tek Lim. The minister will be last. I would say continuing to engage in dialogue and build trust. And I think somebody mentioned that trust is really the underlying factor that's going to speed up the AEC process. So engage and build trust and to the extent we can bring leadership into the process. All right. Thank you very much. Shenk-Tek, thank you, sir. Oliver. I think we should stop talking and just do it. All right. I like it. You sound like an ad, but I won't mention one. That's fine. Oliver, don't be. Thank you, sir. And the ASEAN brand is gaining traction and investments and trade and facilitation and peace and prosperity and the peace dividend and high incomes. These are very important. Having said that, of course, we need to get more buy-in from small, medium enterprises, young people, the villagers, rural people. That's a challenge for us. But we are clearly on the road. This is a very interesting, exciting journey. And, inshallah, we're getting there. Thank you very much, Minister of Trade and Industry of Malaysia, Minister Mustafa Mohamed. Thank you so much for joining us in this morning's session. I'm Karen Davila, and I think the message is we do hope you invest in ASEAN. Thank you.