 Cyn wych i'r ffordd o'r ffordd oherwydd mae'n gweithio i'r Ffordd i'r Cymru, a dwi'n gweithio'r ffordd oherwydd mae'n gweithio'r region yn ymweld ar y dyfodol. Ddau'r cyflwyno, Alan, a Daryl, ydych chi'n ddiweddu'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio, ac yn oedd i'r meleisiau yn ysgol, yn ysgol, yn ysgol ysgol cyfligol. Gydag y bach o'r gweithio, gydag y bach o'r gweithio'n gweithio, Is this breathing fresh impetus into alternative trade deals like RCEP? Thank you, Sri. What is happening right now seems to give us this opportunity to look at ourselves once more in ASEAN. I know before I start on ASEAN, I did hear some comments from friends during our conversation over lunch. It's not as easy as I'm suggesting it to be that ASEAN should start thinking about consolidating together once more, talking less of being Thanos, taking away the Thanos in us, because at the end Thanos did die, by the way. We need to take away that greed about our own selves and we need to start taking opportunity of what was already built several years ago, and that is ASEAN. We have plastics, we have the other nations that are working with ASEAN as well. So we can create an economy through ASEAN where we can cushion all the effects of this uncertain American and Chinese trade war. How do we begin? Where do we start? I would propose that during the ASEAN meeting, the leaders of ASEAN, the economic ministers as well as the head of states, should just say, okay, enough of all the talk about our own country or the deficit of our country where some country says, oh, we are at least developed than you, or we are more developed than you. Forget about that in ASEAN, work as a singular ASEAN as an economy, work as a singular ASEAN to trade between ourselves and make it seamless between ourselves. So that could, and not 100%, but that could probably reduce the impact that is forthcoming because of this tariff war. That being said, Darryl, the regional diversity that makes up the ASEP membership, or I should say the potential ASEP membership, could potentially be something of a stumbling block because a lot of these countries are at very, very different stages of their economic development. How will the negotiator square that circle? The negotiator should have in their mind the idea during our ASEP discussion that the intention is to prosper their neighbour. If all our neighbours prosper together whereby we help each other, whereby we input to each other on how to develop their country into similar equal status as the others, then we'll be all right, we'll do all right. You see, Sri, a lot of people are already speculating on what is to come. We know it's going to happen, but then again, we have to embrace the fact that the solution must come right now for us, at least in anticipation there also. Tanabe san, if I can bring you in, and I'm wondering if history is a guide here. In the 80s and the 90s, there was a lot of friction between your country, between Japan and the United States, and there was a rather bruising confrontation between Japan and the US. Now, look at where you are today. Politically, the alliances are quite strong. Economically, they are quite strong as well. Is history a guide here? And what can we take away in terms of the lessons that we learned from the US-Japanese trade friction and what we are seeing today? Yes, I'm currently working for a private company, but I have been long involved in trade negotiations and trade policy making at the government. In fact, I was involved in a very severe US-Japan trade friction time. So, you know, what's happening now between US and China is a kind of deja vu to me. So, there are certain solutions. Back in the 1970s, 1980s, we were often pressured by the US with the Super 301, a kind of gunboat operation. And we negotiated on many issues, almost all sectors, and we ended up, in most cases, sometimes voluntary export restraint, or sometimes voluntary import expansion program by private sectors. So, that kind of things, that time, say, 30 years ago, have worked to soothe the calm the situation. But thereafter, everybody learned and we were in the Uruguay round negotiation and created WTO system. This is an open and free trading system based on rules. So, we have to be reminded what we have done out of our experiences in the 1980s. So, a rule-based open multilateral trading system based on rules is important. And we have to tackle with the unilateralism coming from certain corner. At the same time, at the same time, there are certain frustrations and complaints by the United States, which cannot be solved the current WTO rules and systems. In that perspective, we have to endeavour to improve, reform the WTO systems. So, we have to be in total mindset based on our historical experiences. Thank you for that. Victor, let me turn to you because you are best placed to offer the perspective from Hong Kong and also from mainland China. Let's start with Hong Kong first, just how concerned are the corporates with this very difficult trading climate and what is the mood in mainland China amongst the export industries and amongst the Chinese leadership as well in Beijing? I think we are a little bit confused, of course, because there is no clarity as to whether this is a short-term, medium-term or long-term struggle. But I think smart businesses, which many of my Hong Kong friends are, we need to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. And I think the psychology of the uncertainty really is the killer. A lot of the investment decisions are likely to be slightly slower down. And Hong Kong being one of the premier, you know, merchandising centre and a bridge in and out of China, obviously if this trade war is going to be more than a short-term phenomenon, there will be serious repercussions. And Hong Kong itself also has some structural problems that we need to manage. You know, our pack to the US dollar on a fixed rate is producing daily challenges. Our stock market has dropped 20%. That really is an accelerated technical correction because Hong Kong asset prices have been grossly overblown in the last five years. So in a way, if you look at the silver lining, it is an opportunity for us to get back to basis, catch up, look at our competitive advantages and try to be more lean and mean and reform. One of the initiatives, for example, for Hong Kong was the Hong Kong ASEAN free trade agreement that we signed last November, which is very interesting. Hong Kong wants to be more than just a greater China bridge. We want to be at the centre of Asia looking at closer relationship with Japan, with ASEAN, and whilst contributing to the China's Rural Bridge initiative and the Great Bay initiative. There's a lot of initiative coming out of Hong Kong right now. In the last 10 years, we have invested over US$100 billion in infrastructure and are coming on stream. Now on China, I think the net impact of the trade war is yet to be felt because so far it is de minimis. But it's the psychology of that trade war leading to a major strategic competition between two of the greatest economic powers in the world. That is nasty. I've always taken the view that President Trump is a smart businessman and President Xi is a very reasonable man and they seem to get on. Between them, they must be able to find a solution that can satisfy the immediate needs of each domestic political constituency. The silver lining of this trade war is that China's macroeconomic domestic reform is able to break some barriers, like the improvement of intellectual property rights, better market access for international investors, and also the improvement of the rule of law generally. That is going to be a silver lining because of the pressure from the West. But then the psychology of a strategic rivalry is something which may get the domestic sentiments misled in both countries. And I think that is something that we need to work at. Do you feel, Victor, that if things get really messy in terms of retaliation, China will make it difficult for companies to operate in the mainland? I hope not because China, like my learning friend from Japan has said, is committed to a rule-based trading system. China has, at least on its external economic affairs, wants to remain open and actually more wide open and pivot itself to its Asian neighbours. The fact that we have a vice-premiere of China here in Honei is very special. And I think that sends a message that China wants to work much closer with its Asian neighbours, including Arsan, but also Japan, India and Korea. So we all hope that cooler heads will prevail in this trade dispute. But if it does go down the slippery path of retaliatory tit-for-tat action, then what options does China have? There's a sense that I'm getting is that they are running out of tats, so to speak, and that leaves the currency. Is there a risk that Beijing will, as some believe it may, weaponise the currency and appreciate it to support the export sector? You know, in the era of global supply chain, the impact is going to be unthinkable if we have a major long-term struggle, more than a temporary trade war. It is the consumers in the market in the US and worldwide which is going to take the hit immediately because basic commodity consumer products is going to be a lot more expensive. And in China's tit-for-tat is going to be a lot more measure and specific, and that's going to hit constituencies which shouldn't be. And then in this part of the world too, because a lot of the manufacturers here produce intermediate products for final assembly in China, is going to be too. So the thinking that trade war between US and China will benefit Asian manufacturers, that may happen in the medium and long term, but short term is actually quite difficult to replace China's supply chain. Probably I think my Japanese friends will be probably the most efficient in reinventing that because they have been big investors in China and also big investors in ASEAN, a Japanese investor is the biggest investor in ASEAN. They will be able probably to manage the supply chain arrangement, but not everybody can be that efficient and that quick. So I think it is not something that I like to think should happen in the long term. A very important point, Victor, that I'd like the panel to expand on and that is the reaction amongst companies based in Asia who have supply chains, especially in China, who are now looking to relocate because of the trade frictions. And let me start with Tanabe san. Is that a conversation that Japanese multinational corporations are having right now and if they are, what are the favoured destinations in terms of supply chain relocation? I would expect here in Vietnam would be one of them and Thailand as well if you could expand on that, that would be very useful. Well, generally speaking, major multinational Japanese companies have strategy of China plus one, meaning of course a lot of investment has been done in China and maybe more investment. But to balance China, many Japanese big industries are investing mainly in ASEAN, sometimes India, sometimes Bangladesh. So in that way Japanese major companies have done certain hedging operation already, but still those big companies will have trouble in certain sudden shocks, so they have to be well prepared. But there are many SMEs and mid-sized companies only investing in one place. That's a bit difficult situation for them to shift or transform their supply chains. So in any way controlling and keeping maintaining supply chains needs stable trade and investment regime that should be reminded to countries like of course the US, China and big countries. They should be mindful of global economy which will be affecting the sudden change, affecting the supply chains of big industries and also SMEs. Alan, if you could just pick up on that point and this time put on your former central bank governor's hat and talk about the second round effects of tariffs and especially this tariffs as taxes on the consumer narrative which seems to be gaining a little bit of traction in the US. We're already starting to see the pricing pressures at the factory gate in PPI and I think the crucial question for policy makers at the Fed is at what point are those producers going to pass on those higher costs to consumers and at what point are we going to see a rather nasty cost push inflation situation? Well you do have to think about that and all the economic models say this is a bad thing, it's going to hurt, it's going to hurt, the models say it's going to hurt the United States and China. I've heard some people in ASEAN say well we can do something more positive out of it but how does it hurt mainly through price increases but also through distortion and pushing businesses into investing in second best places as a result of all of that. It doesn't happen short term. The negative effects take a while to feed through. Yes, you're right, there's been some evidence of industrial price increase in the United States. I can't see any sign of consumer price index yet but of course it's going to happen if that continues and there will be a significant negative in all of this. So I think short term we're seeing businesses checking supply chains, we're seeing inventory going up because businesses are worried about short falls or... So are front loading in other words? I'm talking about the Asia Pacific region as a result of getting into markets in the United States. US economy looks like it's growing very well. Some of that is inventory build up, some of which will be shorter term sort of feature. And then more medium term is a question about investment. Where do you invest and how do you move this? A lot of the exports out of China into the US are mainly not made in China, they're mainly made in other places particularly mainly in ASEAN and a fair amount of it with Japanese or other foreign investment. And of course that does mean that in the medium term it's mobile but everybody's waiting to see just where all that comes through. Could we see a real impact on exchange rates or from exchange rates? I mean ironically in China at the moment with the RMB weaker than it has been against the US dollar it looks like they're probably getting a lift to their exports roughly of the equivalent of the negative effect that the tariffs from the US have put in place. But again that could be a short term sort of feature. We wouldn't want to see a big impact coming through on to exchange rates out of this because at that stage you start saying could an economic shock like this have a financial implication as well. Let me just pick up on that with specific regard to China and in the course of our reporting a lot of currency strategists have been saying that look, dollar C and Y at the 7 level is a very politically loaded number and that's a red rag to a ball in the Trump administration. Are we going to get there and if we do get there is there a risk that the US will use that as ammunition to label China as a currency manipulator and up the ante even further? Well we don't know. I mean it could happen. It won't just happen with China if you look around the region you'll see plenty of other exchange rates that have dropped by around 9% this year and of course that's partly because the US dollar or largely because the US dollar has increased as a reserve currency. So I think we all understand the whole thing is connected like that. I don't know what the political rhetoric will be on the back of that. But suffice to say as trade tensions escalate this is going to be a pro dollar story because it's going to feed into paradoxically safe haven demand for the US dollar. That's a fair assumption is it? OK, if anyone has any questions in our audience I'd love to bring you in at this point in time. If you could just say who you are and where you're from we will get a microphone to you. Does anyone want to get the ball rolling? We have a colleague with a microphone who's in the audience. Yes sir. That's Donald. I'm Don Hannah from CIMB. We've been talking about trade but some of the conflicts that we see in particular vis-a-vis the United States and China revolve not so much about trade as they revolve around investment and the rules that govern investment in intellectual property rights. I wonder what opinions that panel might have on those issues. Thank you. Who'd like to tackle that one first because it is a very important question in so far as there is a perception that there are IP issues going on in China but the tariff narrative, the heavy handed approach seen by some is not the right way to go about it. Victor do you want to tackle that one? I think the psychological effect of the trade war which may lead to something more fundamental will basically force investors to wait and see. We are one of those and I think it's only responsible as an investor just to wait and see a little bit to see how events unfold. One hope is a short term thing but if it's a long term thing we have to review our investment plans and to see whether we can do it smarter. That's the sad thing because we're taking out liquidity, long term FDI which were otherwise coming into emerging markets to fuel the reform and development and I think this trade war is going to make investors second guess the end result. Likewise with Brexit, a lot of us have been looking to invest in the United Kingdom but Brexit is like mirror images, you don't know how it won't go so the natural thing is to wait and see. So I think that is part of the problem, we are going to see less liquidity flowing into ASEAN, we are going to see less FDI coming in if this trade tension persists and I hope we are all mindful to that and really talk to our own representatives in the right countries to find a way round so that it doesn't affect not just the global supply chain but the normal investment flow. Alan we will get to you but just a cheeky question from me Victor because I am British in case you didn't realise but on Brexit is there a risk that we see Britain crashing out of the European Union by that deadline of March 2019 with no transitional deal? Well, who knows, I think that's the, if you ask number 10 they will say that that won't happen right but then if you ask the man on the street every day there are more people thinking that it could be the no deal scenario is becoming more real and that will probably the worst case scenario for everybody and I hope that that will not happen either. Thank you for that. Alan you wanted to make a point. Very interesting question on intellectual property and investment and I think the political economy looks totally different about that because in the United States there is quite a bit of concern about tariffs but there does seem to be a community of interest right across the corporate sector that there is something about the difficulties of investing in China and the worries about preserving intellectual property and all of that and indeed it looks like there could be a coalition of interests not just American but European and others as well and some of that is behind some of the concerns around the WTO dispute systems as well so that's a little bit different from a political point of view but of course we know that when it comes to investment regimes it's quite less transparent in terms of barriers to these things and also there's quite a lot of room for retaliation just from a country making it more difficult for another country to invest through bureaucratic red tape those sort of issues. Of course that comes back to the Made in China issue and Made in China which is getting a lot of attention in the United States a lot of criticism there looks a little bit like what Japan did in the 1950s, 60s and the Asian Tigers did in the 60s, 70s, 80s except that China is so big that that really moves the world and does make it more difficult like that but again I wonder if what we might be seeing in terms of criticism from the United States on that could actually feed into that China Made in China argument because more and more we see ZTE for an example which has got a lot of trouble supplying its own semiconductors out of China and one of the arguments that presumably China takes out of that is we need to be more self-sufficient and we'll see where that one runs. Is this really at the core of this trade dispute? It's Washington's beef with Made in China 2025. Oh it's one of the beefs. And how insurmountable then are these non-tariff barriers on both sides? Well I'm not sure we've really seen the non-tariff barriers yet but there's a lot of scope for them to come and to come in covert ways that could be very difficult to deal with. Darrell. Actually the same opinion actually. You can't really tell on the non-tariff problems that we'll face when the time comes. I'm looking more at ASEAN again. I'd like to quote what Jokowi mentioned. The Avengers all got together. So this is that moment in time where we have to start thinking about what will impact on us in the coming year. Because all this like Alan mentioned and also Victor mentioned as well as Tanabe. You won't feel it now. You'll probably feel it next year. The impact will be there. Property prices will be impacted as well. And so will cost of goods services as well. So ASEAN have to get together and all those that are able to work together including the other non-ASEAN country within our region should sit down and say okay we better create this economy amongst ourselves and buy between ourselves as well. And it's interesting because we were talking about this in the green room. The ASEAN China factor is a very compelling one. Victor has said it very clearly. The dragon and the tigers. Exactly but there are some issues. There will be issues. I wonder if we can return to that conversation. Just get back to the audience. And yes gentlemen in the second row has a question. Yes sir please. I am Praveen from Awadagrop India. I have a question. I mean in the last two decades most of countries have thrived and grown through this global trade. Now with protectionism and I could speak US heads bad with a lot of countries. Even countries within themselves are blocking trade and creating trade barriers. How do you foresee global trade going forward? And what's the policy prescription for governments for achieving that in case the trade barriers increase further down? Did you make out the question clearly? I'm so sorry sir there was some problem with the audio or maybe the microphone. Could you just repeat your question? Because of the trade barriers that's increasing. Now most of the countries had policies around export oriented growth. China is a prime example of that and a lot of countries have tried to replicate it. But now with this global trade, with a lot of these trade barriers and inward looking approach of countries. What's the approach that developing countries should take in terms of to achieve growth? If there are trade barriers are too high. I think the gist of the question is for countries that are quite heavily dependent on trade and if the situation with trade is looking increasingly challenging then is it incumbent on those countries to start building out a more stronger domestic consumption led economy. Which is what China is doing now admittedly. Is that the hedge and is that the offset? Yes I think that's an interesting question but quite a complicated one. Actually when I look at the regional trade flows I'd say that initially some of the problems or challenges aren't so much ASEAN they're actually north east Asia because it's Korea and Japan and Chinese Taipei that are exporting into China with some minimal value add which is going on to the United States. So they look like the ones that have got the highest exposure via China into the United States. So it will be interesting to see if there is re-hubbing or investment that doesn't just come to ASEAN it might go into other north east Asian places for that and then that also brings up another issue. Would we see other countries in the region retaliating or doing domestic policy moves they might want to do which might not look like they're WTO compatible but doing it undercover effectively and we've already seen one country putting up tariffs recently and it's hard to criticise that. And you're referring to Indonesia? Yes. Right and let's pick up on that because you and I were talking about this Alan and Indonesia's tariffs on I believe it's in the region of 1500 consumer goods is aimed at reducing import dependency and therefore stabilising the currency. That seems to be born out of necessity. Are they going to get hit by the WTO and are they protectionist? Well some of it I understand they are doing because of exchange rate movements rather than just sort of industry policy but yeah they could and it could spread through ASEAN and that wouldn't be good for ASEAN as a whole. Thank you very much indeed for that question. Does anybody else want to contribute gentlemen towards the front please? My name is Munir Majid. I'm from ASEAN Business Advisory Council Malaysia. I think you mentioned the 80s and the 90s and the stand out event then was the Plaza Accord so-called Plaza Accord which resulted in the revaluation of the Yen and a Deutschmark at that time and this in turn resulted in relocation of investment especially by the Japanese companies. Now have you reached a point in this trade war where people are beginning to take investment actions to get out of China or even Chinese companies also investing outside of China so as to surmount the barriers that's coming from the state and take advantage of the ASEAN integration that the minister spoke about. Tanabesan please go ahead. I would say yeah we have experienced trade frictions then Plaza Accord then the exchange rate rearrangement very sharply very sharply that was a shock so Japanese industries making a lot of investment in Asia especially in ASEAN countries but at this moment I don't think there is that kind of shock that magnitude of shock has not yet happened especially in terms of the exchange rate issues. I don't know certain political uncertainty which may affect investment decision by companies of those countries I don't know yet. And I know I'm glad you mentioned the Plaza Accord and I know it may be a little bit of a pie in the sky theory but in some circles there is now talk of a Trump Plaza Accord where the currency US dollar is revalued Trump has already made it no secret that he wants a weaker dollar there seems to be confusion over the exact direction of dollar policy but let's bring in the former central banker on that what's the possibility of that happening? Weaker dollar. Well I don't think there's much chance of a weaker dollar while the US has reserved currency and while there's volatility in the markets and concern about future policy in addition no one's mentioned US macro policies where we have this rather unusual situation of a gradually tightening monetary policy but a very loose fiscal policy that's going to need a realignment at some stage as well so I don't know but I don't actually see how that one happens. Do you think this US growth leadership that we're witnessing now this entire narrative over US exceptionalism as far as the growth trajectory is concerned is that part of the explanation as to why we are seeing such an aggressive trade posture that Washington feels look we are winning this we're doing okay the markets are doing well why stop here? I mean there is strong activity in the US economy and you can see current and previous presidents arguing about who's responsible for that but that's been a long time building up in all of this there's quite limited capacity now with the steel issue for example I understand a number of old steel plants are being taken out of moth balls and put back into production and there's a lot of productivity you'd have to expect there's going to be price pressures on all of that so this has got to come through in the wash it's going to take some time to do that and then we still don't know how much of what's being talked about in a policy sense is actually going to be ongoing and long term and we'd very much like to see what happens in NAFTA as well. Okay thank you for that Alan and let's return back to the audience please right in the front row. Thank you very much my name is Kumagai and I'm a chief economist of Daiwa and I'd like to ask a simple question what are the best scenario and the worst scenario of the current global trade war and what is the most important point of divergence between these two scenarios? Very good question. Darrell shall we start with you? Best and worst case scenarios economically let's start with your country which is pretty trade dependent. We will be definitely very concerned on what will happen because we are very dependent on trade and we do export a lot to both China and also to America they are our biggest trading partner as well so if there was any diversion of it like I said we know this is going to happen, we know what's to come we best focus on what we already have within our region first the supply chain is amongst all of us anyway between ASEAN and also Indochina we are all together we just built our economy between ourselves first and still trade on with the Chinese and of course the Americans while they have their problems and issues we hope that their leadership will come into the table and we hope that they can discuss together and treat this as a method that needs to be resolved soon enough of all the tariff wars imposed between each other as well and look at the bigger picture and the bigger picture is all of us, ultimately the future that's my thought on it Thank you Darrell and let's just cross over right to the other end of the panel and pick up with Victor we're already seeing a slowdown in economic activity in mainland China there is a sense amongst some of the more pessimistic forecasters that we could see growth decelerate by the end of the year to 6.2 even 6% I know that's a worst case scenario but how realistic is that? Let me start with the best scenario the best scenario with pressure from Washington will encourage China to speed up its structural economic reform which has been blocked by a lot of vested interests so in a way, Xi Jinping and a lot of the reformist group will be helped by the White House and indeed this argument could apply across the world because we treasure the rule-based system that we have built up over the years I mean the WTO by no means perfect but it's the fairest and the most non-distrumentary system we have detailed with other international organisations none of which are perfect But even that is coming under question now Exactly, but if because of the way that Washington is coming out it makes me think and it creates a climate of reform now if we just achieve that President Trump will go down in history as the most effective American president in modern history I'm saying that's the best scenario it's a catalyst for strategic smart reasonable reform because it may well be Trump's negotiation position because he's never shown his real card so in other words he will go down in history if he manages through his trade policy to get the leadership in Beijing to correct the imbalances and indeed in terms of some of other international initiatives too but that's the best scenario The worst scenario is that this trade war becomes a long-term struggle between ideologies and everything we have learned to expect in the last 30-40 years that reform of a market will allow a society whichever political system it may be under to be more open, more responsible, more responsive to social needs and also play a more constructive role regionally, internationally all that probably will have to be redefined and trade problems will lead to economic problems economic problems tend to lead to political problems political problems will lead to social problems and social problems will lead to conflicts and that is not something which personally I like to entertain at all so I think we have to be careful that it is, you know, 70-80 years ago after the major conflict we set up international institutions including the likes of international Chamber of Commerce many to promote trade and development because we believe that is a guarantor of harmony and peace and it is only with peace that societies can prosper so I think that could be a worst-case scenario And Victor, just very quickly, would you agree with President Jacoey when he said that this current round of trade tensions is so intense and he hasn't seen this kind of intensity on the trade front since going back in history in the 1930s is that an accurate representation historically? I think this time is different because this time when we have these tensions is coupled with major generational change technological change and societal change I think that's where the combination of all happening at one time makes the whole thing more unpredictable because until probably three years ago we believe we are in a globally interdependent world we are in a globally connected world and we look upon the benefits of globalization that has brought millions, hundreds of millions from the property line we look at the benefits of that and we are seeing some of the pushbacks of globalization and the speed of technological change and people feel uncertainties displaced and now you are having this right wing or left wing radical political voices becoming mainstream so I think these tensions are happening at the time of major social change and that's why it's difficult to deal with well, I would say the best case scenario would be China will offer a certain concession to the US because if they go into trade war China has more disadvantage because of the difference of dependence on export so China will be more affected so China smart people China's leadership are very smart and learn a lot from the history including Japanese experience so I would hope China will offer maybe certain import expansion program or certain reform on say IPP or SOEs so they can do, they should do then US may be satisfied that's the best case scenario the worst case scenario is of course the tariff war, trade war going to affect each other and affecting the global economy in order not to happen we have to work hard we mean Asia, East Asia especially say Japan, ASEAN or APEC we should work including Hong Kong of course we should work so we have to build up certain mechanism we have now CPTPP which should entry into force as soon as possible and maybe expanding maybe expand to have new members and RCEP, RCEP is very important and now we are in the final stretch of the negotiation we should agree the high level RCEP agreement for the sake of East Asia and for the sake of global trade regime so that kind of tools we have to build up then during doing so we should and I think we can build up mutual confidence among East Asian people APEC people and of course including China and the US that kind of mutual trust building process is very important Alan well that was an interesting question and I agree with all the answers I mean best possible that we see some of the policies that have been put in place being pulled back that we see the current account deficit of the United States that well actually it's the merchandise trade deficit with the focus on the manufacturing sector to be precise we see that particular deficit against China because that's the one that's the really big one pulling back but it's not happening at the moment and we're going through a period when after all we are seeing a bipolar