KUALA LUMPUR, May 27 — There is a need to look at regulatory coherence across Asean-China to inject new impetus for business opportunities, said Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) secretariat executive director, Tan Sri Rebecca Fatima Sta Maria.
She said the collaboration between Proton Holdings Bhd and Zhejiang Geely Holdings Group (Proton-Geely) is a good example of how Asean-China partnership has given rise to cross-border growth for the automotive industry in Malaysia.
“The collaboration (Proton-Geely) says a lot about this relationship where China saw the value in Asean by leveraging the platform that Malaysia had but needed to be upgraded with more technology.
“That collaboration brought a new life to the industry,” she said during the “Borderless business: Capturing Asean-China trade opportunities” webinar, hosted by Standard Chartered, today.
In addition, Lenovo executive director and general manager (global account business, Asia-Pacific) Daniel Tan said the regulatory and infrastructure between Asean countries differ but it is opening doors to diverse opportunities.
“You cannot treat Asean countries as one standard as each one is different. Each country has different markets and resources that will help address the different sectors in the market, so I believe it creates opportunities for everyone,” he added.
Meanwhile, Standard Chartered regional co-head of client coverage for Asia, Heidi Toribio, said three sectors driving the future of the China-Asean corridor are manufacturing, electronics, and energy and resources.
“New and fast-developing segments, such as electric vehicles and batteries, offer attractive propositions for Chinese automotive manufacturers and suppliers to expand their regional footprint,” she said.
Toribio noted that opportunities in Asean’s information and communications technology services market are expected to flourish with the rapid rise in digitalisation.
“We see an increasing demand for cloud services in Asean and it is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 26 per cent between 2019 and 2024,” she said. — Bernama
