BANGKOK (NNT) – Another summit being held in parallel with the ASEAN Summit is the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit 2019 (ABIS 2019) which is the private sector’s forum. It is organized by the ASEAN Business Advisory Council, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Commerce and the Joint Standing Committee on Commerce, Industry and Banking. The Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Commerce have shared their visions about driving the economy towards the 4th industrial revolution.
The ABIS 2019 held by Thailand’s private sector as the ASEAN chair on its second day, discussed the private sector’s important role in urging preparedness and seeking ways to benefit from the digital economy era, as it is expected that in the next six years the value of the digital economy in ASEAN will triple and reach 240 billion US dollars.
Before the opening of the 35th ASEAN Summit, Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister, Jurin Laksanawisit presided over the opening of ABIS 2019 on the concept of “Empowering ASEAN 4.0”. He expressed his appreciation of the private sector for realizing the importance of ushering the ASEAN Community into the 4.0 era or digital age, which is considered an appropriate because of the rapid changes in technology and innovation that are altering the patterns of trade, service, consumption and production resulting in a new business model especially online trading and services. AI and robots have also replaced human labor in some instances and caused some traditional businesses that couldn’t adjust in time, to gradually be closed down in many regions of the world.
The value of ASEAN’s digital economy grew rapidly from about 50 billion USD in 2017, to 72 billion last year or seven percent of the GDP. However, the value of digital economies in other countries such as the United States, the European Union, and China account for 35 percent, 27 percent and 16 percent respectively, indicating that the digital economy in ASEAN still has an opportunity to grow much further. ASEAN is aware of this, and has therefore, taken steps to propel ASEAN’s digital economy by establishing an E-Commerce Agreement to enable cross-border trading, preparing an ASEAN digital integration framework, facilitating trade and developing businesses and skilled labor.
