KUCHING: More than 300 top business leaders from across the Asean region will converge at the Asean Business Club (ABC) Forum 2014 on September 8 and 9 to tackle trade and industry issues and support the implementation of one Asean Economic Community (AEC).
Photo shows Nazir (centre) speaking amongst other regional dignitaries during last year’s ABC Forum in Singapore. More than 300 top business leaders from across the Asean region will converge at the ABC Forum 2014 on September 8 and 9 to tackle trade and industry issues and support the implementation of one AEC.
According to a press statement, the leaders will address concerns on the region’s readiness for an integrated economic region under the AEC initiative, the corporate sector’s expectations and challenges to AEC, which is set to come into effect on December 31, 2015.
ABC Advisory Council member and AirAsia Group chief executive officer (CEO) Tan Sri Tony Fernandes will chair the forum while Lim Hng Kiang, Minister of Trade and Industry of Singapore, will be the guest of honor at the forum.
The forum will focus primarily on six sectors: legal and tax; automotive and manufacturing; financial services and capital markets; minerals, oil and gas; food and agriculture; and retail.
Discussions in the forum, which will be held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Singapore, will be included in the ABC’s ‘Lifting-the-Barriers’ reports on each of the sectors, and the reports – which will highlight industry barriers and bottlenecks as well as propose solutions – will be delivered on a later date to Asean officials, all economic ministers in the region and the media.
Independent research partners Frost & Sullivan, AT Kearney, ZicoLaw, Ernst & Young, Bain & Company and Accenture are spearheading research for the reports.
With the forum, the ABC aims to promote sector-based discussions to enhance the Asean agenda. It seeks to help better prepare the Asean region’s business community for AEC, which will establish a single market and production base by 2015.
It also aims to help attract more investments in the region, initiate reforms, prepare the work force for market integration and improve the region’s competitiveness alongside neighbouring economic giants China, Japan and India.
Of note, the ABC is a fully private sector-driven initiative that serves as a forum for Asean’s top business leaders to network, collaborate and play a leading role in the process of Asean economic integration.
ABC members include some of the most prominent business leaders in the region, including council members Datuk Seri Nazir Razak, Fernandes, Patrick Walujo, Chairul Tanjung, Chartsiri Sophonpanich, Tos Chirathivat, Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, Cezar Consing, Chew Gek Khim, Goh Yew Lin and Thura K Ko.
The forum is organised by the ABC and the CIMB Asean Research Institute (CARI), a public organisation committed to the development of the Asean Economic Community and which serves as the secretariat of the ABC.
ABC said, this year’s forum is sponsored by Silverlake Axis, DBS Bank and CIMB.