 Hello and a very warm welcome to the World Economic Forum DW debate coming to you from Anepidow, the capital of Myanmar. Who would have thought just a year ago that we'd be all gathered here in this country on the threshold of great change, a country which is currently facing huge problems but also hopes be part of the success story of Southeast Asia. Now economic prospects in Southeast Asia remain extremely bright but we also know now that lack of proper infrastructure is a big drag on growth which could be even higher and more inclusive. So what do we need to do to power growth through strategic infrastructure? What actions? What innovations do we need to realize the full economic potential of Southeast Asia? To discuss as we have a distinguished panelist for you here, starting with Stephen P. Groff who's the vice president of the Asian Development Bank based in Manila. Shahreel Shamsuddin, president and group CEO of Sapura Kanchana Petroleum from Malaysia. Hamish Turwit, chief executive officer late in holdings based in Australia. John Rice, vice chairman GE Hong Kong who's also the co-chair of the World Economic Forum East Asia. And Geeta V. Javan, the minister of trade from Indonesia. A warm welcome to all of you. Now you could give them a hand of course. Stephen, let me start with you. Now you have a very broad overview of the region through your work with the Asian Development Bank especially in infrastructure. What do you think needs, what are the infrastructure needs in your assessment of this region to unleash its full economic potential? Well, I'm ready to first thanks for having me here today. I mean I think we all know that the needs of the region are huge. Our estimates for developing Asia are the needs are somewhere on the order about 750 billion dollars a year between now and 2020. So those are huge and those are a range of different infrastructure areas such as transport and communications and energy supply. But the other part of it of course is that we need to see interconnectedness between Southeast Asian countries in particular increasing. And right now the connections, the transport connections, the public communication connections, the energy supply connections between countries in Southeast Asia are insufficient to meet the kind of demand, to meet the kind of growth rates that we want to see propelling the region through for the coming decades. Thank you Stephen. John, your company GE has been involved in ASEAN for over 100 years. How important is the role of the private sector in unleashing the potential of this region through investments in infrastructure? Well, I think it's very important. I think when you look at the challenge of providing infrastructure for a growing population, a growing middle class that really wants better things, you need private companies and the technology they bring, you need private capital. And then you need capacity and capability creation. I mean you have to be able to train people and help them become better leaders. And it's really the kind of things that you do for a country that we would do in GE for our own people. Right, now obviously Hamish, your company is an engineering and a company which has been involved in infrastructure in Asia for several decades. You're also a member of the World Economic Forum's Infrastructure Steering Committee. What areas would you highlight in infrastructure development which are key for the region? I think the first thing is to understand what was that committee form for and why. And if you look at the major challenges that have taken place post the GFC, really is the burden of rolling out infrastructure or the responsibility of rolling out infrastructure cannot rest just with governments alone. Various fiscal constraints mean that we've seen a huge shortfall and the global shortfall of infrastructure development is around about $1 trillion. So at the World Economic Forum, the Board of Governors and the infrastructure sector has really been working on trying to unlock the issues that are causing that deficit. So we're looking at prioritizing projects, we're looking at better allocation of risk between the public and private sector. And finally, how do we access this huge amount of private funding that is out there and really bringing that public-private partnership together to fund this infrastructure deficit. Thank you. Sharil, now you are the owner of one of the biggest companies, oil and gas integrated services companies based in Malaysia. Do you think that energy is the biggest infrastructure issue facing the region? And if so, what needs to be addressed most urgently? I would echo to say it is a very critical component of development because energy will drive all the other developments that is required. And it's not just one, just energy, but the interlink and the dynamic that goes on the different components as transport, education, security and a strong legal infrastructure. Because when all of this comes together, then we will also attract investment into the region. And one of the things that we have to be mindful about this area is that different countries are at different levels of development. I would propose a joint development on infrastructure itself because that would be effective use of capital. At the same time, I would also like to underscore the point that in developing any of these facets, especially energy, it's also an opportunity to build capabilities locally. I think John mentioned about capability building and building a middle class. This project is huge. It's an opportunity to train capabilities to grow the middle class in this area, which is on the demand side of whatever is produced after the energy and the transport and telecommunications. Without the development of both in tandem, you may disintimidate certain classes of people and it will not be a sustainable. I guess I would add to that it will be a prudent policy that encourages all of this to happen in tandem. Thank you, Sharil. Geeta, most of the big infrastructure projects in the world, particularly in Asia, the hands of the government, what kind of actions and innovations can the government actually take or make to make infrastructure more effective in this region? I think let me speak on behalf of ASEAN. We take a look at ASEAN on the yardstick of just about everything in the infrastructure play, whether it's the degree of electrification, the number of kilometers of roads on a per thousand person's basis, the number of kilometers of railroads on a per thousand person basis, and the telephony and all that. ASEAN sort of rings sup vis-a-vis our friends in other parts of Asia. Well, not to mention the OECD countries. We've got our work cut out. I think the view-taking going forward ought to be with respect to the government's will or political will rather. That has to be backed by a very strong fiscal space. The rule of thumb is for every dollar that needs to be spent on any infrastructure project, the government should be spending a quarter to a third of that, and the rest should be by the private hands. But the private hands are not going to be participatory if the government is not going to be doing anything about it. Now the good news is ASEAN I think has a pretty robust fiscal space. I can speak for Indonesia, a country that runs on a debt-to-GDP ratio of 23 to 24 percent. It's got money to spend now. But for about 25 to 30 years there has been a regulatory hurdle, and that was basically the absence of the land law. And finally the land law came out almost two years ago, and the presidential decree that basically would detail out some of the stuff that needs to be involved in clearing land and all that is out just about last year. I think we can expect to see some quite significant unleashing of infrastructure development by way of our having the necessary regulatory framework, the political will, probably not as ideal as we would like it to be, and also the fiscal space. Because the governments in Southeast Asia are spending enough on infrastructure because you were spending Indonesia about three and a half percent of GDP, which you intended to raise to 11 percent this year. But are they spending enough because the average spend in Southeast Asia by governments on infrastructure is below the Asian average? Sure, sure. I mean like whatever yardstick that I've mentioned, not only the portrait of where we are vis-a-vis all the other countries in Asia, but what we're spending is not as high as where it should be. Take a look at Indonesia more particularly. Our logistics to GDP ratio is the highest in the world vis-a-vis some of the more developed economies in Asia, much less the developed economies around the world. I think it's around the range of 20 percent in terms of the cost of logistics, and that is attributable to the fact that the infrastructure is just not adequate. We've got to spend a lot more, and I think we can't just be thinking of the tens of billions. We've got to think of the hundreds of billions if not the trillions in the next 10 to 20 years. The question is, are we going to have enough fiscal space? And the answer is we do. Now I think with that space given enough political will, given the right regulatory framework, I think we can start getting things moving the right direction more so than ever. Hamish, do you think there is enough fiscal space? Because what statistics show that actually the amount of money spent on infrastructure lending projects last year declined by about 6.3 percent? I don't think the constraint is lack of liquidity or the fiscal constraint. I think the issue is the risk allocation and if we call it this public-private partnership, how do we actually develop a model that deals with all the risk across all the different sectors to give the certainty to the investors to get their return over a sustainable period? And everything we're talking about here is not one or two years with all of us have mentioned decades and a very long-term vision towards a sustainable product or future. So for me, the key is really the model, is an equitable model that shares the appropriate levels of return and risk between public and private partnerships. John, is that something you can agree with that risk is the problem, the distribution of risk, and is there only one model in private-public partnerships or what would you? I think public-private partnership is a term that people tend to define a little bit differently. At its heart, though, I think you have to assume that if you're going to attract private capital to invest in a public infrastructure project, you have to be prepared to deliver the investors a certain return. And for a public company, it's roughly equivalent or over the weighted cost of capital. And if you can't do that, then you're not going to attract much private capital because that capital has got to go where the shareholders think that they can get a reasonable risk-adjusted return. And so it really starts with that premise. And I think if you can solve for that, then you have companies like ours and others that are quite prepared to do business around the world, even in places where you might see a higher risk because it's a business we understand, it's with partners that we know. So we take a different view of the strategy behind the decision. But you've got to really wrestle with the fundamental question, is can you give a return, provide a return that allows the private capital a reasonable risk-adjusted return? Shari, what has your experience been? I would like to echo what you said, but I'll give an example. If you look in Malaysia, the development of margin and oil fields where we were able to fund it, we were able to fund it by the banks, basically. We were able to raise a bond based on the certainty of hydrocarbons in the ground and that the project will yield a certain return. Without knowing that you will get that yield, you will not get the financing. So in that way, the policy was to allow some sort of a cap. I mean, the risk is guaranteed by the company. And the banks were willing to accept the risk because the company was in a consortium that had track record of developing these fields before. The subsurface was studied by an independent company which was endorsed and that risk was internalised by the financiers and the financiers then gave us the money to develop the project of now almost a billion over dollars. So again, it's the legal infrastructure, the way you would find innovative ways of financing those kind of projects through non-traditional approaches to the securing of risk. Stephen, everybody's talked about some of the kind of this cheap money available for infrastructure projects. There's a need for infrastructure development. From your experience, is it actually just the lack of finances which is impeding infrastructure development or is it the non-financial hurdles which are much more important like the regulatory framework, the legal framework that you talked about, and multiple layers of governance in countries like Indonesia? The short answer to the question is yes. I think that the challenge that the region faces is one of this risk point that John has made. But it's also a lack of instruments for intermediating the excess savings that exists within the region and we refer to this as the infrastructure financing paradox that exists within Asia broadly but specifically within ASEAN. I mean ASEAN right now you have some 700 billion dollars of foreign exchange reserves and you have an unmet demand of 60 billion dollars of infrastructure just in ASEAN alone. So unless we can figure out instruments and mechanisms for leveraging against that, those excess savings, right now those excess savings are invested in low-yielding treasury securities in the Eurozone and in the United States. So we need to figure out ways that you can leverage that money much as the other panelists have said to make investments at you know appropriately risk assessed investments in the region. Agita, do you think the governments are doing enough and have they got it right because when you choose an infrastructure project in which you want to invest what is your primary motive? Is it actually to gain revenue or is it to actually job creation or to help the maximum number of people benefit from it? We're not in a government to gain revenue, we're in a government to serve the public, right? That's a politician's government. That's what they call me the public servant. But look you know you've got ASEAN with around 10 kilometers of roads on a per thousand person basis, about 0.25 kilometers of rail roads on a per thousand persons basis, about 75 to 76 percent electrification rate. Relatively good quality of water availability. Telephony you know the fixed line yardstick is not I think accurate in you know giving the right picture because of the mobile telephony and that has allowed us to circumvent the impediment. Now I'm not a proponent of the argument that you know the money is an issue but the fiscal space is an issue. I've never been worried about whether or not there's enough money out there to fund the building of roads, railroads, ports and airports and power generation capabilities but the private guys are not going to go in if they don't see the government getting its act together. Now the government has made a couple of mistakes in Indonesia you've had this. Well that's that's probably an understatement but you know nobody's perfect but look I think the view forward is that we have recognized what our shortcomings have been and the important thing is directionality. You know guys like John and Sharl and Steve and Hamish are not going to look at Indonesia if there is no macro political stability, if there is no macro economic stability and I think we can check off those two boxes today, tomorrow and a few years thereafter. The ratings are improving and all we've got to do is just that we've got to put money on the table from the government. For a long time we didn't we didn't have that ability because we were indebted significantly we have trimmed down our debt now we can start thinking okay let's put more money into education let's put more money into infrastructure before when we started having more money we can do it as easily because the regulatory framework was not ready. Now it is more ready than ever because the land law is out it tells and defines the extent to which or how long you're going to have to wait to clear land and how much you got to pay. That's a defining moment not only for the government but hopefully for the private sector. Now all the stuff that John and the other guys have to do is just wait okay this guy's been talking but is he putting money to work? Exactly that's what I want to ask. If in a year or two we would have built better airports or more airports ports and power generation capabilities I'm quite sure the money will come because there's tons of liquidity out there. But when that's the question so I want to put this question to John. Well again coming from ASEAN you know I'm a student of gradualism we've just got to be patient. You see what time is running out so we have to find out. I'm going to ask John Indonesia is obviously making quite a bit of an effort from what the minister says. Is the story of Indonesia replicated across southeast Asia are governments doing enough in terms of infrastructure regulation in terms of land uncertain land rights? I don't really know how to define enough but governments are doing more and I think the point that Geeta made more and more governments understand it's complicated. There are trade-offs that go with all of this. I mean economic development infrastructure development doesn't come for free right and it doesn't come without making trade-offs. You have to choose you have to make choices about power sources. You have to make choices about transportation. You have to relocate people to build new roads and railroads and that comes at a little bit of a price. But that is the conversation going in the right direction. I think it absolutely is. Amrita if I may just add okay almost a couple of years ago John and I were having a drink in Honolulu he was just boggled and bogged by how slow things were and I told him to be patient and guess what value unleashed a couple of months thereafter and guys like GE and the big companies around here they get the big picture and all they want to see is directionality and I think Indonesia has been able to prove directionality. I think that's exactly right and we're not we're not looking for risk-free investments. We're looking for reasonable clarity a level playing field and a stable governance structure. We understand as an investor you have to take risks so it's not about that at all it's about exactly the points that that Gita made and when we see that we are prepared to invest and we're doing that in Indonesia and other countries in Southeast Asia. Well what the risk the region does face is actually the lack of adequate electricity or what they call energy poverty. Sharil if you want to kind of add your comments on that by 2015 the ASEAN economic community is supposed to come in place. Energy integration is an important element of that. How far have they got there? I think the conversation is progressing well again you know I have to underscore the the issue of trade-offs. Different countries are at different levels of development and prudent use of policy to drive the delivery of energy to the right place and the transportation of energy to the right to the demand where it's at is it's a complex one you know. If you were just to use a straight line capitalistic model you'd say just let's send it where the demand is but you do have to send energy to where the demand is not yet and to ensure that those areas come up because in the end of the day if you stretch a time frame at 30 years those are the areas that are going to need that energy so you have to start now. So you need to have a longer term view on this and it's not a three year five year it's more of 15 to 25 years. This area is probably going to be some of the figures I see maybe 44% off of the world's GDP in 25 years. But ASEAN has set itself a deadline and that's one of the deadlines is 2015 and the other deadline is 2020 for an integrated energy system. Stephen how much work needs to be done? We heard from Shahreel it's not an easy solution long-term planning but do you mean to say they will not then be able to reach the target they've set themselves for 2020? I wouldn't say that they're not going to meet the target but I think there's a lot of challenges ahead. I think you look at you look even beyond that an aggregate energy demand is expected to increase in the region between 3 to 5% on an annual basis. So there's meeting that demand creating the interconnectedness that's necessary in order to meet that demand on a sustainable basis. But there's other questions as you see that kind of increases what is the sustainable energy mix that we can put in place? And right now if we stay with a mix that we have coal dependency is going to increase by more than 50% during that same time frame. So we need to be looking at the demand side we need to be looking at the supply side and making sure that we're making investments that are going to be sustainable in the long run. I'm not saying in any way that coal isn't going to be part of the solution it will be part of the solution but we need to be looking at addressing energy efficiency we need to be looking at sustainable sources of generation as well. And at the moment I think 74% of the energy in Southeast Asia's derived from fossil fuels what could a new energy mix look like in this region? I don't think it's too much what a new energy mix should look like. I look at obviously the huge supply that's coming on board with LNG and thermal coal and I think the base load in this region it's appropriate that comes from the fossil fuels at this stage and as new technologies come in with GE we're doing a wind farm in Mongolia at the moment we're doing them in Australia. It's getting the mix right but we really need to focus on the base load at the moment. Energy is you know is the foundation of infrastructure it's what stimulates infrastructure and we're seeing this huge move of urbanisation through the whole region is just going to increase the energy demand so whether that's 50% or 100% the reality is that it can be met with today's technology. In fact GE is very involved in providing some of the solutions in Myanmar where we are now 74% of the people have no electricity and 84% in the rural areas. And I think to the point that Jerell made and others it's the fundamental building block for a standard of living change and economic development. If a nice road passes in front of your house but you don't have electricity you don't care so much about the nice road right. You can't do much without electricity in terms of reaching all the people so for a company like ours we've had to reshape how we think about about power generation and look at much smaller more distributed methods because we know that the grid won't get everywhere it needs to go and reach all the people it needs to reach and I think all of the companies that are attending this this economic forum have to have had to alter their view about how to deliver products and technology and capability in places where there are basic needs to be met. Sharil how can the basic needs be met from your perspective in a country like Myanmar where the poor have absolutely no access the rural poor to energy the urban poor have very limited access to energy we take certain things for granted in the western world you press a switch and the light comes on you know you turn a tap on and there's water but these are things which are completely uncertain here in this country. Well you know not just this country but all countries that are similar they are even lazy at one point I mean there are resources yeah and those resources will be extracted as I mentioned before you know in the extraction of those resources for energy there's there's opportunities for capacity building also and again those resources will also be exported and some of the revenues coming from the resources will have to fund social projects because at the end of the day you have hydrocarbon in the ground that belongs to the country some of it has got to come to development of social infrastructures I mean there's no other way that I mean the equation is quite fixed. Stephen I want to just stick with Myanmar for a bit I mean you know we are on this kind of moment in in the country when it's opening up to the world there has been a lot of investment interest in Myanmar but Aung San Suu Kyi the leader of the opposition warned against a frenzy of investments and talked about the need to be a little more cautious in the kind of development that Burma Burmese leaders decide to go in for what is your assessment of the situation. Well I think that's I think that's essentially correct I mean I one thing one of one of one of my greatest concerns about about development in Myanmar is there's a lot of challenges and we know those we know those well they've been articulated by many including ourselves but I think that the one great challenge for the countries is that of expectations management expectations management both on the part of foreign investors but expectation management perhaps even more importantly on the part of the people of Myanmar you know there's huge expectations for dramatic and speedy change that are not going to be met it's going to take time I mean there will be change I'm completely convinced that the government is committed to this reform process but it's going to take quite some time and I think that this is why when we talk about resource extraction it's critically important and I agree entirely with the fact that we need to be making investments side by side in in social infrastructure in off-grid electricity supply in education and health and if we don't see those investments in happening in Myanmar alongside resource necessary resource extraction you know the future is not as bright as it might otherwise be. Now Gita we've seen that you know you as as a politician your country's been through various stages of development there are other countries in this region Vietnam Laos Cambodia they've also had to make changes looking at Myanmar what would you wish for the country what would you caution them against and what would you say that they should need to do as they open up to the world. Well actually I was I was I had a discussion with Aung San Suu Kyi last year and some of the stuff we talked about related to the stuff that you've just observed you know until about a year and a half ago I was the chairman of the investment board in Indonesia and I was very careful about not overselling over marketing Indonesia and it's always useful to tell everybody from within and beyond that you know there's still corruption in Indonesia there's still bureaucratic deadweight in Indonesia that we're not as educated as some of our brothers and sisters and friends in Singapore and Malaysia but the important thing to note is that is Indonesia going to be less corrupt five years from today or 10 years from today is Indonesia going to be less bureaucratic and you know I would encourage them to take a view and and the facts are that you know in 2009 FDI was only about six billion US and last year we had 25 billion US dollars worth of FDI and FDI has been growing at 25 to 30 percent the fact remains that three to four years ago the United States was not even in the top 15 now they're in the top four Korea was nowhere in the picture Korea is now the second or third largest investor in Indonesia and the good news is they're putting money to stuff that matters in the long run and that's not just coal mining all in gas and all that good stuff it's stuff that's being put into manufacturing services agriculture and whatever that I think will help Indonesia move up the value chain that's I think good news because it will help Indonesia move in the right direction Indonesia's already moving in the right direction from what I can see Gita you're very much the flavor of the year and if I had my way well I think Myanmar is a flavor of the year that is true congrats to you know our friends in Myanmar I always think that you know Indonesia is very kind of ready to join the BRICS and I should be called BRICSY with Indonesia as well I've had my debates with Jim O'Neill but it's uh yeah we we you know let the others choose as to whether or not we belong to that group right Kim I want to come back to you and ask you a little bit more about what needs to be done because I mean connectivity is extremely important for ASEAN connectivity includes obviously physical infrastructure as well as the soft aspects of infrastructure what needs to happen quickly that some of the aspirations of connectivity are met with and see them in the short term in the next couple of years I think the one of the key things is a vision if I look at the success stories throughout the region that have worked and Malaysia had vision 2020 and you know you know whether you agree with all of the the projects and the path that it took the reality is that it got Malaysia from a certain base to to a position now where you know very soon it'll probably exceed its expectation of being a fully developed nation by 2020 and reach that ahead of program and that was done by having a vision then putting in place a consistent plan that was not linked to political tenure and I think that's the you know the key if you look at what's worked in the region it's taking the political cycle out of a national vision and out of a regional vision so anything that can be done to you know coordinate a platform that is non-self-serving across the region for the benefit of all in the region towards a vision that lasts the tenure of infrastructure and we've all talked about this slow gestation of infrastructure in a 20 30 year life spans in 50 years it's not four or five years which is a political cycle. So let me just touch on one subject which was read which is they talked about in a corruption and there is a perception of course that there is a fair bit of graft and what is called cronyism in Asia as well as corruption and kickbacks when it comes to large infrastructure projects what is your experience Ben you're a large player in the region. We yeah we we work from Brazil to New Zealand and it's in Malaysia of course in Asia and different perceptions of corruption in different places but in reality when you come to big infrastructure projects where where there is funding from really important funding agencies ADB or World Bank or or just commercial banks I think the the the way the projects are being evaluated corruption has got a very small contribution to this if not at all because at the end the day comes the returns of those projects and if there was the returns won't be there so I think some of this talk about corruption is really overrated and being perpetuated by certain quarters that that all these areas are corrupted but in reality I've not experienced it yeah and in the ecosystem where you have to work with NOCs national oil companies and and and independent oil companies and all majors where evaluation of those projects itself is really transparent because it's in a PSC environment production sharing environment where technicalities of of the job itself yeah is within parties that are not connected to the government there is no ever need to do that because you have to go down and and win it on the base of your technical capabilities and only that in goes to commercial so I really feel it's it's something that is propagated by certain quarters just because they didn't win the job so we have to be very careful about about this myth that there's so much corruption around John do you share that view and I also want to ask you if there's one area of the PPP a private public partnership area that needs a bit of work so that the targets can be reached more quickly what would that be well first of all I totally agree with Cheryl's point we operate in 160 countries and we we worry about corruption everywhere we don't worry about it anymore in Southeast Asia than we do anywhere else in the world we have our way of doing business and we and we walk away from deals that aren't conducted openly and transparently and and there is plenty of business to be had in Southeast Asia under those conditions I want to touch briefly on a point that you made about the frenzy in Myanmar before answering your other question because I I think if it's a frenzy it's not going to serve the the nation well and the government can't absorb a frenzy the decisions can't be made if it's a frenzy I think it's incumbent upon all of us to make sure that it is a measured approach I think the other point is that the the government this this fledgling democracy 60 million people are waiting to see what what benefits democracy will bring and they have to see benefits so there are going to be some trade-offs that have to be made because I don't know that they're going to wait five or ten years to see those benefits they're going to need to see some benefits soon and some benefits over time and I think all of the companies involved and all of the institutions involved in this process have to respect that fact that will require trade-offs to the balance between short-term and long-term and if we we all get this right the there is no reason to think that the people of Myanmar can't benefit just the way people in other ASEAN countries have benefited from good governance democracy investments and a better standard of living yeah the important thing is of course is responsible investments because one of the things Aung San Suu Kyi said that people are already getting impatient here that it's in the third year of reform and they're asking for basic infrastructure basic things like roads water electricity health education so you're right it's also a problem about high expectations well I think so too let's face it democracy is not perfect there are democracies that have been around for hundreds of years that don't always operate the way people would like them to operate I think you have to give a lot of credit to the amount of change that's taken place here in a relatively short period of time people without electricity want electricity and if you don't have it you're impatient so I get that but but this has been tremendous progress in a in a in almost overnight in the context of democratic evolution I'll ask Stephen one of the talk about the frenzy since that has become a bit of an issue here apparently one of the ministers reportedly said that he's meeting so many international delegations of investors that he has no time to actually think about what he should be doing what are they offering what should I do this is this the person to invest in are you worried about that that there is this kind of scramble for a rich nation with poor people for resources here I know I think that's exactly correct and I and I would include you know ourselves as my as a representative of donor the donor community that we contribute to the problem as well where we you know we I think suck up some of the bandwidth as far as the far as the ministries are concerned and it's a challenge we've seen over and over again in many emerging economies where where the capacity in the in the in the government is very very limited so the number of people that you can actually see that know what's going on is relatively limited so I think that what we need to be doing collectively is exercising restraint self-restraint which we're not necessarily that good at but it's you know encouraging to hear John you know emphasize the importance of that but also I think is finding ways that we can invest in building capacity within the government and within institutions in the in the country so they can actually serve that demand the demand is not going to go away and there's going to be interest in this country for a long time to come but that getting over this hump in the immediate term is going to require restraint on the part of of investors restraint on the part of donors but also as finding ways that we can help support the government in in in making these things happen over the short term because one of the very positive elements is that all of you are emphasizing human capacity which is also in terms of soft infrastructure image would you agree that that is one of the critical areas that one needs to look at we've we've never found the human capacity excuse me the constraint to infrastructure in indonesia for instance we've got training schools in balikpapin and banja mason we train our people and that that hasn't been the issue in mongolia we've recently opened up a coal mine and the the highest productivity we get from our machines is from a 19 year old mongolian operator so and that's anywhere in the world so we have the ability to train people infrastructure requires a high skill level at the engineering level but a reasonably low skill skill level on the building components so we can we can deal with that capacity once you uh untap you know for me it's the prioritization of uh of infrastructure which is which is needed and and actually making the commitment to starting it there are very few projects that i've seen that haven't been delivered and and look at the facilities that were in here and and the you know the communication connectivity we've got it can be can be done the human constraint is not the is not the the problem and do you think on balance the asian governments have got this prior retirees their priorities right in targeting which kind of infrastructure needs most investment most quickly i i don't believe that uh that we've got it right anywhere i think that's one of the largest challenges that we have in the uh and that doesn't just go to this region i think it's a it's very complex we're becoming a global world and it's no longer the decision of just a city a state or a nation it's we've got to look at connectivity collaboration and need across the the world there's no point building a a a container ship or port here if there's nothing on the receiving end so i think it is about prioritization and that's a certainly a challenge for government yeah um get there let me just ask you a final question before i start asking the audience to throw in questions um asian is a wonderful organization you work very well together but there's also underlying services are they kind of are you also competing with each other as countries when it comes to infrastructure because there has to be connectivity at an infrastructure level you should have attended the session this morning uh look earlier you know john and i were together with kishore and a few other prominent people uh it was it was a fascinating discussion about where azean is and how we're surviving i think it's important to underline that we're we're a different kind of union by way of history and legacy vis a vis some of the other unions that we're seeing in you know other parts of the world uh and i i think we're there to last and lasting doesn't mean that we don't have to compete against each other and there's a lot of spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood and by way of the meetings that we do as much as some guys or some member countries may not be able to check off some of the the boxes uh there is there is a great degree of respect and understanding and we were talking about the azean economic community earlier today uh you know we're not gonna get to the idealism that we set out you know in 2003 uh we're there's gonna be a few boxes that we're not going to be able to check off but there's respect for everybody else and that's that's i think what's keeping us together aside from the fact that it has been miraculous how we have turned out you know from a geopolitical economic and social and cultural standpoint and i think it's going to last yes singapore is going to have to do whatever they have to do malaysia is going to have to do whatever they have to do indonesia has got to do whatever we've got to do and i think the next 20 years it's all about making sure that we've got the supply side of the equation ready and it's these guys out here who can help us in terms of creating and availing the supply side thank you very much i just want to add one point uh it's it's not just the frenzy in me on maro you know i feel like i don't have time to thank nowadays okay and that's because i think you should be a brixie that's why now um i thank the panelists very much for their comments obviously we couldn't raise all the issues that uh we could have raised and wanted to raise uh but we have time constraints may i now invite the audience to pose their questions you would need to identify yourself and if you have a question addressed to a particular panelist if you could mention that the gentleman there if you would wait for the mic to come to you give a look from extension development partnerships there's been a lot of talk about ppp's and public private partnerships here in infrastructure very interesting conversation but what about private private partnerships and i'm thinking particularly where you know rural electrification meets agriculture meets telecoms and is there an opportunity for the private companies to get together in a more integrated approach to drive both economic development but also the social development that that me and me and mar needs you know we we have dozens of those around the around the world with with companies to develop biomass gasification for distributed power and things like that that there is a lot of private capital that's interested in finding a home in the right infrastructure projects along with the public private connection we saw before i i see no limit to that frankly health care is another area where there's tremendous interest in investing in in basic health care capabilities because that's another measuring stick that people use to gauge whether their lives are getting better or not i'd uh just like to add that probably about 80 percent of our order book in asia is actually private to private so uh you know whether it's the mines that we're working on or you know casinos in in mcow the tourism sector you know bottling plants for coca-cola in indonesia factories for caterpillar so the bulk of the work that we do actually is uh is private investment coming in but where the deficit sits at the moment which is what we've been focusing on is harnessing this public private partnership will fund the deficit but also to go back to the point earlier about about legal and regulatory frameworks and how critical those are in order to realize whether bpp public private partnerships or private private partnerships but also i think policy on the part of governments and in terms of determining that this is indeed a priority and this is one of the things that they want to align themselves behind and so again it there's there's much to be done i call that going to new areas we always try to do to work with with companies that at value yeah on a on a private basis on on for example in in in brazil we go in with uh with with seed will with with another company to to address that market uh in in melasia indeed for development of oil fields we are in with another company called petrified and in and you know you get a sharing of capital a sharing of risk and also the sharing of uh uh expertise and capabilities to execute the work which gives the financiers the uh confident confidence to come in and fund those projects yeah thank you i think we have a question there from a gentleman in the white shirt ming alaw my name is wu wu i'm a member of parliament from ye view constituency well we are very proud to uh host a forum like this and you are welcome to our country what i would like to ask for is what would you like to wish for our people people of mihma or any message that you want to give to us thank you very thank you very much thank you for welcoming us here country we're all very happy to be here and i think this is a message maybe everyone can say a word i don't mind starting i think indonesia could be one of the models you can take a look at uh we democratized ourselves 15 years ago and you know consistent with the words of our leadership to your leadership here that one of the few things that made us the way we've turned out uh was there was that there was a military reform that took place before real political reform and that's i think the step that you guys are taking here already and you can learn from not only our successes but our mistakes and you know we're only 15 years into the game and there's more to come uh but definitely uh indonesia could be a model for you to take a look at i would agree with that and i think that there's a there's a real advantage that me and mar potentially has as a second mover if you will to look at the both the positive stories and the negative stories from the region and uh and move ahead in that and i think one thing i would underscore is just the importance of of of equality and inclusiveness when it comes to growth one thing that we've seen over the region over the last 20 years is we've seen you know tremendous amounts of people moved out of poverty but a lot of that has been in china and so there's been a gap that's been growing between the rich and the poor across the region and that is something that that that that that foment social instability at foments all sorts of different things that you don't want so you need to be looking at both the top end of that growth you have to be looking importantly at the bottom end of that growth as you move forward i think the one thing for me is is looking forward you know the if you look back and you try to you know reflect on the past and you and you can't um you can never put that behind you but the challenge will be to unite on a common vision for the good of the nation and and that's uh and then tap into all the lessons learned around the region because you're certainly not alone in the journey that you're taking and there's a lot of interest that you succeed you know my my wish is that that people will see the benefits of democracy understand that there needs to be some trade-offs in order for those benefits to keep accruing and that this process will continue to develop and if you think about the indonesia analogy there were probably people 15 years ago who were predicting it might not work it's not moving fast enough you know there isn't the right benefit being spread around and those things get dealt with over time and the tremendous success that that country has had is a perfect example of what can happen when people persevere sherry i'm a little bit cautious to to recommend any cookie cutter solutions for for for i guess for for the running of a country because every place is unique and every place have their own issues that they have to deal with therefore you know look at all the systems that are available around and and understand how those systems fit best to your own needs and your own pace of development again i'll be very cautious to have benchmarks that are they are put up there for that are not relevant to you to yourselves because you are your own people and i think you should choose how you want to run your country only you know better but the elements are there you know as long as as benefit goes to to everyone that lives in that country i'm sure you will sort me and my will sort itself out in good time if i may just add my little comment to that and one is that i have met a me and marie's journalist yesterday and he said to me that you know it's a tremendous opportunity for us me and mar has a lot to gain but if things are not done properly we have a lot to lose so i think it is kind of really important to do it right at this point now we are running out of time so we'll have to make the questions kind of pretty brief and we'll just get one person to answer them instead of the whole panel but this i think was an important question so i wanted everyone to have their say the gentleman there in the red tie please i i'll make it short my friend my best so the i'm the local company in the energy sector so the you all know about the electrical situation in yama and yama is going through the economic growth and then the the now we need a lot of the lack of infrastructure and energy is the the like what you say the foundation of the infrastructure so if you look at the electric electrical power side so the currently what we are having is the lacking of the the sufficient of the supply so we have a problems in the power generation we have a problem in the power distribution so there is some kind of the innovative innovative measure is needed so i especially like to uh the ask this excellency please share with your experience and how you solve this kind of problem in the in terms of the infrastructure briefly thank you so much well the key is for the i think the private sector is very good in sizing up the who you know modeling exercise right you know whom to partner with and size up the risk and return profile you can partner with you know guys here or guys outside me on mar but you've got to size up the degree to which the government uh you know can get it sacked together in terms of coming up with the right tariff regime coming up with the necessary framework so that you can make money uh without being able to make money you're not going to do anything here uh and second the government has got to have the fiscal space which is why you know i'm not so sure you know is it better to democratize in good times or democratize in bad times we democratize in bad times and as such we had to really trim down on just about everything and we had to well we lost a few years but we had to start out from scratch on a few fronts you are starting off at a different level from where where we were starting off 15 years ago just make sure you don't over splurge you spend wisely make sure the government spend wisely on the stuff that matters that ensures that the climate for the private sector is conducive for you to make more money in the next 10 to 20 years thank you in fact you could perhaps later after the debate talk to John Rice from GE because they also have some really kind of interesting ideas on electricity in the smart grid and non off grid things but i need to ask another couple of questions before we finish off um there was the gentleman there who was waiting if you can have what we'll do is we'll just ask a couple of questions and then take them and then the gentleman here can you bring the please the gentleman in the suit and then the next question we'll have is the gentleman here in the beige jacket yeah i'll try to be as succinct as possible my name is jim Keith i'm with a business consulting firm a clarity associates and a retired diplomat you got toward the end of the conversation to the hard part about the trade off and the prioritizing and what that really means is it more important that a country like Myanmar gets it right or is it more important that the region gets it right around the country thank you uh my name's on cocoon uh an economist of nationally for democracy for economic community yes i would like to ask the expected inflation rate of adb uh yes you are expected adb's expected inflation rates for Myanmar in coming six months yes thank you okay we'll take one more question and that's the end actually we'll take two since the two hands there quickly and quick short questions please the gentleman there with gray hair and then the gentleman there in a white jacket and that's it that's the final questions we'll have thank you okay my name is son from trainer solar so i have a question to uh uh stephan uh graph um in this asia uh asian area is actually the sunbed area done by the the uh uh electricity assessment rate so low that means the off-grid system would be a perfect solution of course integration in the connection is very important and uh but maybe the energy mix could be go something different direction and i know adb did a lot to support for the off-grid system uh you have a lot of experience from your experience what do you think that this area could do something more whether from private sector from government or from finance institutions thank you very much and the gentleman in the white jacket thank you very much i'm a many data from the bank you know once i was involved also in the energy and for for banking sector we also request for wider participation from the international bank if they really would like to see the development in Myanmar the same thing uh now you can see we have a taken up the wrong strategy in the let's say something like we have committed all the the sale of all our guests you know so we we cannot make a you know short term measure in order to uh you know this kind of measure for this so only just very very very how you call it very specific uh let's say request to you is we like g we all we only need a short term measure only for short term measure we only let we know how can do you all help out together from international cooperation thank you very much i think we have run out of time so what i'm going to do is i'm sorry to use my prerogative as a moderator to decide that obviously energy is the big issue so i'm just going to let steven answer briefly uh one of the topics on energy and then we'll end with just one sentence from each of the panelists saying what they think is the key takeaway they have taken from the session so steven okay on on energy i think that the the key challenge is there's no there's no mix predetermined mix that we would we would suggest to the country a lot of it is going to depend i think importantly on on fixing what you already have at the outset i mean the installed capacity is sufficient to meet current levels of demand and yet you have brownouts in in major urban centers across the country and so part of it is going to be upgrading including getting efficiency going and and and putting in deferred maintenance it's going to allow those plants to operate efficiently new investment is of course critically important getting the legal and framework legal and regulatory frameworks right to encourage private investment the energy mix is going to is is going to evolve over time based on demand i can answer the one question on inflation which is our estimate is 3.5 percent uh for this year thank you very much and now i'm going to invite each of the panelists to make one sentence as their key takeaway from this from this session starting with you sherry well it's it's very refreshing to come to come to Myanmar and see that people are asking all the right questions and we're talking about all the right topics today because these are fundamentals of growth going forward and i look forward to do to come to to to Myanmar more and also to invest because i know these in in in very short time you will see results and we have been doing business here for for past three years and it's been very encouraging it's been very professional so it's very encouraging thank you i think it's important that we don't confuse the right trade offs the right policy the right strategy with perfect and i i i worry that there's this search for the perfect energy mix or the perfect policy or the perfect subsidy program and you know we do business a lot of countries and i don't see a lot of perfection out there i think i think you got to try stuff and you do more of what works and less of what doesn't and you adjust and you stay flexible and and the program evolves and i think that in me on mar and a lot of other places you you got to be okay with that if you're looking for perfection i think this is the wrong world john when my mother used the word trade off it always meant doing something i didn't clean up your room it's a trade off john john is always a realist uh look i i think it's important for the people in the government of me and mar not to overspend and oversell you know make sure you spend the right amount on what's important for you in the long run and you know the question on trade offs i think it's quite simple you know you've got to make sure that you do what's right for the people of me and mar as much as there is plurilateral regional and multilateral undertakings and discussions and negotiations that are ongoing that are going to put you in a corner but you know you've got this benefit of being a member of the azean community and that's an opportunity and a form for you to express you know where you are where you want to be and where you may not be able to you know fulfill the desires and aspirations of the other members and i can tell you you know we have not been unrespectful of anybody within the community and i think we'll treat it and look at it with great respect and understanding that was a long sentence thank you gita as uh the minister said respect and and what comes from respect is trust so you know for me out of today it's uh it's about trust in the region trust in the country uh it's about vision so every country needs a vision every country needs prioritization uh you know of projects and initiatives and and everything that you do should be checked against ultimately reaching that vision and that's not just for a nation you know a country or even individually it's also for the region so that's uh you know prioritization and vision for me thank you steven um well i think that i think i don't really have much to add to what's been said i think that this is a you know it's a great moment for for me and mar it's a real opportunity i i i would the only thing i would say in response to the question about azean or me and mar i don't think it's zero sum i think there are plenty of solutions out there that we can look to that benefit both azean and benefit both miramar in the long run thank you steven well that brings us to the end of this uh session powering growth through strategic infrastructure in southeast asia that was the focus of the world economic forum dw debate coming to you from nepi tau the political capital of me and mar i thank all the panelists for their great contributions i thank the audience here for being attentive and i thank all of you whoever you are wherever you may be for being with us on this wonderful occasion i had a great time i hope you did too bye bye