Editorial: Asean Can’t Afford To Let AEC Fall Flat

December 2, 2013 Leave a comment

Editorial: Asean Can’t Afford To Let AEC Fall Flat

By Jakarta Globe on 4:46 pm November 30, 2013.
The 21st century has been described as the Pacific Century as the economic center of gravity shifts east. The rise of China coupled with the strong growth of India and the nations that form the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has generated a great deal of optimism. Asean is a central clog in this new landscape. A market of 500 million consumers, it is seen as an important region, both in terms of geopolitics as well as economics. The region is rich in natural resources, has a large manufacturing base and straddles major sea lanes.2015 will be an important year for the grouping as it marks the start of the Asean Economic Community, or AEC. The leaders have decided that in order to compete economically in the new world order, the countries must integrate and form a common block. This makes a lot of sense economically but getting it done will require political will and commitment.

As a new report called Lifting-the-Barriers points out, while the benefits of greater Asean integration are clear, the process is yet to be completed.

The AEC envisages the goals of achieving a single market and production base, a highly competitive economic region, a region of equitable economic development and a region fully integrated into the global economy.

The Asean Business Club reports are categorized into six different sectors — financial services, capital markets, health care, connectivity, aviation and infrastructure, power and utilities — which are crucial to the growth of the region.

Leaders of the grouping should pay careful heed to the report and the concerns of the private sector. The AEC cannot afford to fail or be stalled as that would mean the people of the region will suffer.

It is hoped that the warning signs will be taken aboard and corrective measures taken before it is too late.

Filed under Macro Trends

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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