The 19th World Economic Forum on East Asia will take place for the first time in Vietnam.
Why are we going to Vietnam this year?
There are two reasons which informed our Decision
to host this year’s East Asia Summit in Vietnam.
Firstly, the forum already has two very established institutions
in Asia’s largest scale economies, namely, in China with our Summer Davos
and in India with our India Economic Summit.
By going to Vietnam with the East Asia Summit we are paying recognition
to the dynamism of Asia’s other emerging markets,
which is very well exemplified by Vietnam.
In the past years Vietnam has consistently
been amongst the fastest growing economies in the world.
And demographically speaking Vietnam is one of the youngest economies
in the world in which 65 percent of the population is under the age of 35.
In fact, a study last year ranked Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi
as the two fastest growing developing cities in the world.
But next to these tremendous economic strides
and development that Vietnam has made over the years its stake in regional
and international corporation has also increased.
In 2006, Vietnam successfully hosted APEC.
In 2007, Vietnam became the hundred fiftieth member
of the World Trade Organization and this year…
So with that in mind, these two reasons we think
that Vietnam is an ideal location to be discussing regional responses
in Asia to global challenges.
The theme of the meeting is rethinking Asia’s leadership agenda.
What are some of the topics that will be discussed at the meeting?
Although the initial impact of the global financial crisis
was indeed very severe on Asian which many economies
are very export dependent, Asia as a region
is today rebounding very quickly and is undoubtedly contributing
to the global economic recovery in a large way.
But we must be reminded that demand
from Asia alone will not rescue the global economy.
The U.S. consumers still accounts for almost 20 percent
of global demand compared with only eight percent for China.
And another factor is, of course, the fact that the global economic recovery
is still more policy induced and not necessarily driven by private sector demand.
Also, the various global challenges highlight the complexity
and the interconnectedness of global risk in the world today
which require greater coordination and collaboration with leaders from industry,
from government, and from civil society.
So in this context the theme for this year’s meeting
is Rethinking Asia’s Leadership Agenda,
where we will consider exactly how leaders from the region plan to collaborate
from all walks of life to address these different kinds of global challenges.
Who are some of the participants that will be coming to Ho Chi Minh City?
Much in the spirit of every forum gathering, this is a truly multi stakeholder platform
where one will have leaders from government, from business,
and from civil society, academia, and Vietnam this year very much reflects that.
We are pleased to announce the participation of both the president
and the prime minister of Vietnam as well as four heads of state
from other Asian countries and four deputy prime ministers.
International organizations such as IMF, the World Bank,
and the WTO are also very well represented at this year’s meeting.
And, of course, our core community, business,
we have over 400 top industry decision makers from over 40 different countries.
What do you hope to achieve with this meeting?
Well, I think if one looks at the agenda for this year’s summit
and considers the variety of topics from tackling corruption,
food security, next generation innovation, Asia’s social safety net,
there is a tremendous opportunity for such a diverse group
of leaders as I have described to really consider how they will work
together to address from a regional standpoint such global challenges.