| Danial Norjidi |
BRUNEI stands to benefit from key regional trade agreements as they can offer more export markets for made-in-Brunei products and also help boost Bruneian businesses’ growth potential and supply chain connectivity in the long term.
This was shared by two Bruneian members of the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), Soon Loo, CEO of the Brunei Economic Development Board and YB Nik Hafimi binti Abdul Haadii, a member of the Legislative Council, while speaking to the Bulletin on the recent ABAC meeting that took place in Toronto, Canada.
“The 3rd ABAC meeting in Toronto went well. APEC/ABAC remains a key platform for Brunei to shape influence on free trades,” said Soon Loo.
“A key side meeting focused on the latest development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its impact on the job market. The advance of AI is clearly shaping up to be a dominant shaping force of global economies in the future. Some of the current jobs will be replaced by machines, and some of the jobs will stay. The critical point for decision makers is to understand broadly which jobs will stay, and most importantly, which are the new jobs that will be created as a result. This has deep impact on our job markets and the ways we bring up the future generations,” Soon Loo added.
YB Nik Hafimi shared, “It was a great meeting seeing some of the many centres of innovation and incubation which ABAC Canada hosted. It was great to see the collaboration between large corporations and start-ups and the encouragement of government, corporations and academia is genuinely boosting startups’ immersion and innovation.”
According to a press release from the ABAC, the aspiration of senior business leaders from around the Asia-Pacific is for the APEC region to be “a beacon of openness, inclusivity and innovation”.
The business leaders met to develop recommendations for APEC Economic Leaders on business priorities for the region ahead of their meeting in Vietnam in November. Hoang Van Dung, the 2017 Chair of the ABAC, said that thanks to a strong rules-based world trading system and open markets, people today live significantly better lives than the generations that have gone before.
“Our long-term vision of a more open and integrated APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) region is not an end in itself. It is driven by our conviction that this will deliver sustainable and inclusive growth for our communities.” Hoang recalled that trade liberalisation has lifted millions from poverty and held the potential to improve the lives of millions more. “Ambitious regional trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the Pacific Alliance can generate jobs and keep food supplies secure. They help future-proof trade and serve as important pathways to an eventual Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, or FTAAP. We now need to take concrete steps towards making FTAAP a reality. The global economy continues to strengthen in recovery mode, improving trade flows. If we give in to the easy wins of protectionism, we risk a downward spiral of tit-for-tat retaliation, economic stagnation and hardship for our people,” Hoang added. He acknowledged that APEC leaders would need courage and determination to press ahead, recalling that it was all too easy to blame trade liberalisation for economic woes at home, even when other factors might play a much bigger role.
“In particular, domestic policies need to be designed to ensure that workers and economies can adapt quickly and successfully to the evolving environment and to enable the economic benefits to be more widely shared. ABAC has commissioned some important research on how we can collectively meet these challenges,” said Hoang.
ABAC also recognised that the digital economy had the potential to transform the way that people lived, interacted and did business.
“Jobs will increasingly demand different skills. Economies that invest in these skills and have access to digital technology will be best placed to take full advantage of new opportunities – and our communities will reap the benefits. Globally, we should also ensure that regulatory frameworks enable greater connectivity including data and information flows while also addressing important concerns such as privacy and data protection,” said Hoang. But he sounded a note of caution about the risks of leaving behind the less advanced economies as the digital transformation took place.
“Inclusivity must be the touchstone here, as elsewhere in APEC,” he noted. ABAC members also noted that economies could not grow without adequate capital market development, investment in infrastructure, and innovation. ABAC would be sharing this message separately with APEC finance ministers in October.
“We should also seek to enhance the prosperity of the region by empowering micro, small and medium-sized enterprises to participate in trade and increasing economic opportunities for women,” concluded Hoang.
The Brunei members of ABAC responded to questions from the Bulletin on these points, beginning with their thoughts on the aspiration for “the APEC region as a beacon of openness, inclusivity and innovation”, to which Soon Loo affirmed that APEC will continue to be very relevant in these areas.
YB Nik Hafimi said, “The openness to innovative and shared collaborative achievements has always been within the core of APEC as a region. Each company has its own challenges on inclusivity and each demonstrates successes of inclusivity to varying levels of effectiveness.”
On the topic of trade liberalisation and regional trade agreements, and in particular how Brunei stands to benefit from this, Soon Loo said, “Some of the key regional trade agreements will continue to be pushed ahead. Brunei can benefit from this by having more countries export made-in-Brunei products that comes with advantageous terms.”
YB Nik Hafimi said, “Brunei has always stuck to her principles of trade liberalisation in order to provide all pathways of opportunities to Bruneian businesses to engage with the global marketplace. The value of Brunei’s participation may not always necessarily be immediate but in the long-term it can boost growth potential and supply chain connectivity of Bruneian businesses.” On the digital economy’s potential to transform the way people live, interact and do business, Soon Loo said, “In Brunei’s positioning of itself in the new economy, digital economy is key.
“It’s important to position ourselves in the global value chain (in areas) where Brunei can be strong at, and planning out these mid-term competitive advantages is important because competitive advantages are not borne overnight.
“On the other hand, this is an opportunity that Brunei can seize because the digital businesses can drastically replace the traditional industries in a very short period of time,” he added, noting the impact of Airbnb on hotels and Uber on taxis as examples.
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