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HONG KONG: Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry Tengku Zafrul Aziz said Asean member states will need to seriously think about cooperating in developing key strategic industries and enhancing income together, while fostering engagement with external trading partners. 

“Asean consists of nearly 680 million people, or almost 10 per cent of the world’s population. Our combined GDP is more than US3.8 trillion and growing around four to five per cent on average the past 10 years.” he said, in his keynote address at the SCMP Hong Kong Asean summit 2024, organised by the South China Morning Post, Friday. 

He said diversity is Asean’s biggest strength, that there is something for every investor such as agriculture, heavy industry, natural resources, financial services and manufacturing. 

“While each nation may be on different growth stages, this in itself make Asean an exciting prospect for investors, so the key is for us to leverage on the varieties.” he said. 

However there is also a lot of room for growth in newer areas such as green technology and digital infrastructure. 

“We should be leaders, not followers or passive consumers in these areas. It will not be an easy task politically – in the long run we will all be winners, but some will win more than others,” he said. 

On China, he said Asean’s trade with the world’s second biggest economic powerhouse is even more than intra-Asean trade, which shows that the grouping needs to do more within the bloc. 

“In a world where supply chain reconfiguration is geopolitically motivated, many global companies and MNCs also need a neutral, peace-loving partner. That partner is Asean,” he said.

“We must continue the good work done in the past few years since the pandemic to build a foundation for Asean. I believe that we can achieve great things together and that the best years of Asean still lies ahead” he said. 

He said Asean should also be engaging with other sub-regions like the greater bay area with Hong Kong as a partner. 

Due to increasingly challenging geo-politics, the ‘to-do list’ of Asean countries is massive, as there is basically a need for more of everything, he said. 

As for Malaysia, he said it is pursuing several economic initiatives, such as the national energy transition roadmap and the hydrogen energy transmitter. 

Zafrul also noted that while Indonesia and Malaysia are standing up for the palm oil industry which is increasingly sustainable, it still gets a bad rap in the west.