Your Royal Highness Prince Abdul Qawi of Brunei
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
Good afternoon!
1. A warm welcome to today’s Business China Dialogue. This is our first dialogue session at the Warehouse Hotel. We hope you have all settled in well.
2. Since kicking off our inaugural Business China dialogue session last year, we are grateful to have received strong support from the public sector and private enterprises. Looking at the encouraging turnout, today is no exception. Seated amongst us today, we have friends from the Info-communications Media Development Authority, Singapore Press Holdings, and leaders from esteemed family businesses in Singapore. We are also tremendously honored to have Your Royal Highness Prince Abdul Qawi of Brunei grace our event today. Sincerely, thank you all for taking precious time out to attend our business dialogue today.
3. The rise of a digital economy is a fact of life now. We will all need to embrace it. Many countries around the world have been profoundly impacted by the advent of digital economy. The way we organise our society, the way business is conducted, the way people transact and interact with each other are all changing. The impact on Asia is especially salient. We have a regional economy that is growing many times faster than developed Western economies; we have a robust and growing demand for products and services not only from manufacturers domiciled in Asia but also from the region’s fast-growing middle class; and we have strong support for the business community from governments that recognize the crucial role innovation plays in growing companies and economies. Rightly described in a Harvard Business Review report, Asia is the “new face of innovation”.
4. Integral to Asia is ASEAN – a region with accelerating growth and where Singapore is a part of. As the ASEAN chair this year, one of Singapore’s economic objectives for 2018 is to deepen regional connectivity to position ASEAN as the region for increasingly seamless economic activity and growing opportunities. Estimates suggest that ASEAN’s digital economy has the potential to grow to USD 200 billion by 2025, with e-commerce accounting for USD 88 billion. Meanwhile, there is an estimated doubling of middle-class consumers, expecting to reach approximately 400 million middle-class consumers in ASEAN by 2020. Evidently, the growth potential that a digital economy promises is immense and one that we must not miss.
5. There are, of course, some outstanding issues that need to be addressed in order to achieve seamless digital connectivity for our region. These include ensuring wide-spread broadband access, interoperable systems & structures, and policy harmonisation. It is also imperative to enhance the digital readiness of our people to overcome the digital divide between the internet “haves” and “have-nots”, and to achieve social & financial inclusion.
6. For instance, the World Bank reported in 2016 that only 50% of adults in ASEAN have an account at a financial institution. This means that there are about 264 million adults who are “unbanked” and are heavily reliant on physical cash transactions across Southeast Asia. Problem? Yes, but also an opportunity.
7. With FinTech innovations and an increasing of an already-high penetration use of mobile devices in ASEAN, financial inclusion is no longer a distant dream. According to data from Tracxn in 2017, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam are home to more than 1,268 FinTechs, with Singapore having the lion share of about 39%. This will continue to grow. The region is also attracting large amounts of investment, making the ecosystem very healthy and vibrant.
8. Further north, China has been making waves internationally with its exciting digital economy. McKinsey Global Institute says that China has one of the most active digital-investment and start-up ecosystems in the world, and it is evident from the numerous digital initiatives that are highly popular within and beyond China, ranging from live-streaming apps to all-in-one food delivery services, and an e-commerce industry that continues to grow exponentially. As the digital hub of ASEAN, Singapore enjoys many links with China, and we hope to continue this positive trend in the future. And indeed, the opportunities for greater digital connectivity across China, Singapore and the rest of ASEAN are aplenty.
9. There is much to say and rave about the digital state of being and prospects in China and ASEAN, but I shall take a pause here. Today, we are pleased to have with us three experts in the field of digital technology, who will draw on their entrepreneurship experiences and share their invaluable insights. They Mr. Nick Yang Ning, founder of angel investment fund Lebox Capital, Mr. Henry Yang Weiqing, CEO and founder of TMT investment firm iResearch Consulting Group, and Ms. Denise Peng Xiaomei, co-founder and ex-COO of Qunar.com.