by admin | May 25, 2021 | Economy, Investing, News, World
Manila : Economic ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) began a four-day meeting here on Thursday to discuss ways on how to further strengthen economic ties and integrate trade and investment in the region.
“Our meeting this week is vital to the region’s messaging on the success of ASEAN as a bloc. We have achieved critical mass to take ASEAN higher as our economies are growing faster than most of the rest of the world,” said Philippine Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez at the opening ceremony of the 49th ASEAN Economic Ministers’ Meeting.
He said by 2050, the ASEAN economy is expected to amount to over $9.2 trillion, making it the fourth largest in the world.
In 2017 and beyond, he said ASEAN “should be cognizant of the changing geostrategic landscape that presents both opportunities and challenges”.
“As ASEAN economic ministers, we are gathered today to send a positive signal amid a backdrop of rising trade policy uncertainties,” Lopez said, stressing the need to reaffirm the importance of integrating ASEAN into the regional and global economy.
He said ASEAN will maintain an open and outward-oriented perspective through free trade agreements (FTAs) with India, Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.
ASEAN also has cooperation mechanism with dialogue partners such as Canada, the European Union and the US.
As a formal community, the 10-nation ASEAN bloc wants to create more free movement of trade and capital in an area of 625 million people with a combined economic output of $2.6 trillion.
The Philippines holds the ASEAN rotating chairmanship this year.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Entrepreneurship, Halal Food, Halal Industries, Halal Medicine, Muslim World
Kuala Lumpur : The Halal Fiesta ASEAN (Halfest ASEAN) 2017 is expected to woo both visitors and entrepreneurs to its impactful programmes, as well as, innovative and quality products and services to be showcased, says Halal Industry Development Corporation (HDC) Chief Executive Officer Jamil Bidin.
He said the five-day event, to kick off on Aug 23 at the Mines Exhibition Centre, would present a new line of strategic partners namely the Bumiputera Agenda Steering Unit (TERAJU), with the aim of enhancing Bumiputera engagement in this potentially large-scale industry, and also Starbucks Malaysia which would share its quality and branding strategies.
HDC is the organiser of Halfest ASEAN 207 and co-organised by Shapers Malaysia.
“As for our partnership with TERAJU, we will conduct a product development programme, focusing on innovation and creativity by introducing a Superb Halal Chefpreneur Challenge 2017.
“Cooking expert Redzuawan Ismail or better known as Chef Wan by Malaysians will assist us to select five entrepreneurs as the winner under the challenge round,” he told Bernama.
Jamil said five entrepreneurs will receive a grant of RM50,000 each to develop their food products to the next level.
The Chefpreneur Challenge would be an annual activity at Halfest with the allocation likely to increase, he said.
“Next year, we aim to organise Halfest on a much bigger scale, to further complement the government’s Halal agenda,” he said, adding that the next halal event in the country would focus on promoting halal ingredients.
“With all these events in the pipeline, we are confident Malaysia can export RM50 million worth of halal exports by 2020 from RM42 billion at present. This could be achieved via an additional RM2 billion (in exports) yearly before we enter 2020,” he explained.
Besides, halal products and services, Jamil noted that the demand for halal ingredients from Malaysia has started to pick up, and soon, the country would want to leverage on this platform, promoting cosmetics and healthcare.
Halfest ASEAN 2017 is an integrated trade and consumer expo for halal products and services, a platform for entrepreneurs, especially small and medium enterprises to promote their products and services while strengthening trade relations within the retail industry in Malaysia and the ASEAN region.
Meanwhile, Shapers Malaysia Sdn Bhd Chief Executive Officer Mohd Shukri Abdullah said the company expected sales during the five-day event to match would hit last year’s RM4 million.
“This year we have about 200 buyers for business matching session, therefore we are expecting to increase the number,” he said.
Besides the business matching session, other activities lined-up in conjunction with the event, include the Islamic Takaful Banking Week, talks by the Association of Islamic Banking Institution Malaysia and Malaysian Takaful Association, Halfest Asean street food kiosks, pocket talks and halal clinics.
The pocket talks and halal clinics would offer local entrepreneurs a chance to learn about halal certification and enhance the ranking and marketing of their products and services. (US$1=RM4.33)
— NNN-BERNAMA
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business Summit, Economy, Events, News
Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit 2015, at Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur:(IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Mondi on Saturday asked the global investment community to invest in India and draw comfort from its fast economic growth, strong fundamentals, continuous reforms and a welcoming environment.
“By almost every major economic indicator India’s doing better than when we took office 18 months ago,” the prime minister told the Asean-Business and Investment Summit, listing such positives in growth, inflation, interest rates, fiscal deficit, foreign capital inflows and tax revenues.
“Obviously, this did not happen by accident. The world economy is not exactly doing well. This success is the result of a series of concerted policies,” he said, adding the idea was not to reform alone but to reform for transformation.
“Most of the ASEAN economies have done their bit for Asia’s resurgence. Now it is India’s turn,” Modi said to a loud applause after his arrival here in the early hours of Saturday for the 13th Asean-India Summit and the 10th East Asia Summit.
“We know that our time has come.”
The prime minister also outlined a host of steps taken to make his country an investment friendly destination, notably through campaigns like “Make in India”, “Digital India” and “Skill India”. “I invite you to come and see the winds of change in India,” he said.
“Winds take time to cross the borders. That is why I am here to invite you personally.”
Modi said his government was working hard to cut complicated procedures and making them available on one platform, preferably online, besides simplifying forms and formats on a war footing. “That’s how we have jumped up by 12 ranks in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Report of 2016.”
This, he said, has also resulted in foreign investment inflows growing 40 percent this year, and the country jumping six places in Unctad’s ranking of investment attractiveness and the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index, besides an outlook upgrade by Moody’s.
Listing some recent initiatives, he said foreign equity caps were eased in some key sectors such as insurance, defence and railways, permissions for approvals were placed under automatic route, foreign portfolio investment norms were relaxed and the regime of retrospective tax had ended.
“These are just a few examples. Almost on a daily basis, we are trying to remove the bottlenecks that were affecting our growth process. Even early this month, we took very dynamic steps to further open up the economy for foreign direct investment,” he said.
“With this round of reforms, we are among the most open economies in the world.”
The prime minister also sought to address some of the concerns the global investors had. “Going further, I want to assure you that India is committed to protecting intellectual property rights,” he said, adding: “We’re moving fast to make sure our tax regime is transparent and predictable.”
He assured that genuine investors will get quick, fair decisions on tax matters.
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Investing
Vice President,Mohd. Hamid Ansari meeting the Deputy Prime Minister of Cambodia, Mr. Sok An, in Phonm Penh, Cambodia
Phnom Penh:(IANS) India on Wednesday described Cambodia as a key element in its engagement with the ASEAN and said a special purpose vehicle (SPV) is being set up to attract Indian investments into the Southeast Asian country as well as neighbouring Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.
Vice President Hamid Ansari, who is on a visit to Cambodia and later to Laos, in his address at the Council of Ministers, said the CLMV countries of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam are of special interest to India among the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Noting that these countries include some of the fastest growing economies in the region, are primarily agrarian, and have enjoyed certain degree of macroeconomic stability in recent years, with vast potential for future development, he said that creates strong complementary interests between India and the countries on the basis of a tripod of Commerce, Culture and Connectivity.
These are sustained by more frequent political exchanges, he added.
Ansari said India-ASEAN ties are poised to scale new heights and his visit to Phnom Penh “underscores the importance India attaches to Cambodia as part of our increasing engagement with the region”.
Terming India-Cambodia economic relations much below potential, he added that India hopes to launch the SPV soon “and I am confident that in the near future more Indian companies will explore the investment opportunities here”.
He said agriculture and agro processing, mining, oil and gas and small and medium enterprises offers opportunities for trade and investment by Indian business houses and that India will endeavor to encourage its companies and businesses to explore the emerging opportunities in these areas.
“For this, we look forward to support not only from Government of Cambodia but businesses here.”
Ansari said another area of cooperation is in defence. “India is happy to have been involved in training efforts for the Cambodian defence forces. We will continue and enhance these training efforts,” he added.
On terrorism, he said the “spreading tide of extremism and terrorism is a threat we both face. Successfully dealing with such threats requires strong cooperation among like-minded partners. I am glad that we have taken some steps to institutionalize cooperation in this area. We will continue to pursue more regular exchanges between our security personnel”.
Ansari said that “as two of the fastest growing economies in the world, the potential of our joint efforts to enhance our bilateral trade and investment, our collaboration in science and technology, our co-operation in human resource development and, of course, our cultural exchanges, is boundless”.
“As India embarks on the new phase of its Act East Policy, and as Cambodia prepares for successfully integrating economically in to the ASEAN Community, we hope to work with our Cambodian partners to realize this potential,” he said.
Ansari earlier met Prime Minister Hun Sen for delegational level talks.
