Intra-Asia trade, investment flows will shape South-east Asia’s future: OCBC CEO
Goh Ruoxue
THE future trend for South-east Asia continues to be intra-Asia trade and investment flows, said OCBC group chief executive officer Helen Wong at a conference on Thursday (Oct 5).
“The pandemic showed governments that it’s always good to be doing more with closer neighbours,” she added.
She was speaking at a panel discussion on the second and final day of the inaugural Asia Future Summit, an event jointly hosted by The Business Times (BT), The Straits Times and Lianhe Zaobao. OCBC is the presenting sponsor of Asia Future Summit 2023. The event is also supported by Guocoland and Kingsford Group.
Titled Seizing the Next Bound of Growth in Asia, the panel was moderated by BT’s deputy news editor Janice Heng and featured, alongside Wong, Mitsunobu Koshiba, the former chairman of JSR Corporation and founder of think tank Cdots.
China-plus-one strategy
Wong pointed out that Asean grew to become China’s largest trading partner during the pandemic, and that OCBC has seen a lot of trade and investment flows between both sides.
Against the backdrop of the so-called “China-plus-one” strategy, the bank has been seeing a lot of interest among Chinese companies in Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, she said.
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“A lot of them show interest in establishing the supply chain as they follow the multinationals and Chinese companies coming into this part of the world. They are setting up shop in – first stop, obviously Singapore, as their Asean headquarters. Then, they’re looking at other parts of Asean.”
Likewise, Koshiba believes that the region has experienced resilient growth after the pandemic.
Citing Apple’s shift of its iPhone production away from China as an example, he proposed that such decoupling from China offers an opportunity for new suppliers in the region to attract, in particular, the semiconductor industry.
“Here in Asia, there’s a good chance for new players to come into this market (and) take advantage of this decoupling,” he said.
Moving slow to move fast
In a time of uncertainty, postpone the decision as long as possible, advised Koshiba.
“My advice to the corporate management in Japan is that it is a time for us to increase the number of options… This is not really the time to make critical decisions in a hurry. Just postpone the decision as long as possible, and you can do it if you have enough options,” he said.
He added: “You don’t know what’s going to be your opportunity, so that’s why you create options.”
Wong proposed otherwise. “There is only so little time to be waiting and seeing because if you don’t move on, then you’re falling behind,” she said.
But she agreed on the importance of creating options. She believes that talent is a salient issue for any organisation, particularly whether companies have the best people to capture the available opportunities.
“When we are waiting and seeing, the best thing is to reflect on whether we have the people who are strong enough to take us to the next stage,” she added.
She concluded that businesses have to focus their attention on two areas: first, on keeping pace with technological advancements and digitalisation; second, on committing to sustainability.
“To me, as a business person, I always look at these two and of course, making sure (that we have) the right people to deal with all the uncertainty and capture the options and opportunities.”
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