Check against delivery
Transcript E&OE
Ricardo Gonçalves, Emcee
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming in and welcome to the SME conference. It's the first major event of the business track, as part of the 2024 ASEAN, Australia Special Summit to commemorate 50 years of our dialogue partner status with ASEAN, we celebrate our history and our long standing commitment to shared prosperity, security and stability. My name is Ricardo Gonçalves. I'll be your emcee for today and for a bit of context. I'm a World News and finance presenter on SBS, which is our public broadcaster in Australia, created to reflect Australia's multicultural and diverse communities. So our conference is being held on the land of the Wurundjeri Warung people, and I wish to acknowledge them as traditional owners. I would also like to pay my respects to their elders, past and present, and Aboriginal elders of other communities who may be here today. We are also being joined by elders for a welcome to country in a few moments. Today, we hope you have the opportunity to connect and network with others in the room and discover opportunities for doing business in Southeast Asia. I would now like to share a brief video from the Prime Minister extending a warm welcome to you all.
Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister of Australia (video recording)
Friends, welcome to Australia. It is an honour to welcome you to the ASEAN Australia Special Summit in Melbourne. Australia's proud to be Asians first and oldest dialogue partner. This year marks the 50th year of our partnership. It is an opportunity to reflect on how far we've come, on the strength of our enduring relationship and on our vision for the future. Australia's connection with ASEAN is founded on our strong people to people bonds, our deep economic links and our shared vision for a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo Pacific. I look forward to a great summit and to working together to build a partnership for the future.
Ricardo Gonçalves
Thank you to the Prime Minister for that video message. Before we start with the official proceedings for today, just a bit of housekeeping, so bear with me while I go through some of this. All rooms are mobility and wheelchair accessible, and the restrooms are located outside plenary 3. In case of an emergency event staff will direct you to emergency exits. Emergency exits are clearly indicated throughout the MCEC, which is the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. In the unlikely event of an emergency while we are here, please follow the instruction of MCEC staff. There is a fully equipped medical centre located at the ground level of the MCEC, so if you are feeling ill or have been injured, please advise one of the support team here in the room and they will assist you with full access to first aid if required. The marketplace hopefully you have seen as you walked in is in the main foyer too, which is outside and up the stairs. It will operate until 4:00 PM and alongside the marketplace, we've got the business lounge. There'll be 4 of Australia's senior trade and investment commissioners who have flown in from South East Asia, they are available there to discuss any ideas you have or any approaches that you would like so please do make contact with them. You can find them at the Austrade exhibition or at the business lounge, which is just beside it. Just seek summit and austrade staff, they'll help connect you. Our mobile phones could we make sure we've got them on silent, please? I appreciate you may need to take some calls so you can keep it on silent if you need to take a call, just go upstairs to the foyer or outside where you can get some reception to if needed. Again, we would like you to keep your phones on you because you've got access to the Summit app. I've got details on the programme there, details on speaker, speakers, information about Melbourne and what's going on throughout the day. There are app details on today's slides as well, so you can access it there. If you are having trouble accessing or using the app, just please speak with one of the summit staff and Wi-Fi of course is freely available within the venue. I would now like to formally begin the conference by introducing Auntie Diane Kerr, OAM, Wurundjeri Warung elder for the Welcome to Country.
Auntie Diane Kerr
Thank you. Good morning everyone. I honour my ancestors and my elders and I pay homage to this sacred ground that we're all on. I wish to acknowledge any elders, elders of different nations and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons and the First Nations peoples from across the waters, and I acknowledge you all and I pay my respects to your ancestors, elders and families. It's an honour and a privilege to be here this morning on the traditional country and my grandmother and mother and family to be able to welcome you on their behalf. I'm the eldest in my family line, I don't have any generations above me, so I've been an elder almost half my life. My mother passed at the age of 56. And I take my role very seriously. I live our traditional laws and non indigenous laws, so I'm lucky to be an elder and. To look after the younger ones and teach them and. The Wurundjeri Elders council Is about 50 years old, same age. And I remember starting around my aunt's kitchen table. Some of us in those days were on disabilities or on the pension or on what you get when you don't work? And we've come from working at a kitchen table to now a multimillion dollar organisation without funding. And we're very proud. I'm very proud of us because we've been able to retain some of our traditional country back on our own. We've been able to have ceremony on those countries because our people lived just along the back there on the Biruni Yarra. Before that they were moved to a place called Coranderrk Station, which is a mission in Healesville in the Dandenong’s, and that's where my grandmother was born, so there's just two generations ago. So the MCG is our traditional ceremonial area. Down the road, the confluence of the Merri Creek and the Burong are our nishing gatian grounds. The ground between the Children's Hospital and the zoo is a meeting place for the Kulin Nations, which are 5 tribes, of which Wurundjeri is one of them. Government House is a camping ground between the Wurundjeri and the Bunurong. Who are our neighbours and part of the Kulin nations? So all through Melbourne here is important to me. It's important to our families. And this is why we do welcomes to country. Our welcome to country, about 65,000 years old. When people wanted to come and talk to our elders, they had to sit on the boundary of our traditional country and wait until they were invited on country. In order to do that, they went through smoking ceremony and a water ceremony. And that was about coming on country clean of spirit so that we could all sit down equally. It's about obeying our laws of country which is not to harm the land or the waters and not to harm any of Bunjil's children and you're committed to those laws, and you were looked after and who you left our country. So we ask you to tread lightly on this special country. We ask you to respect each other and share your stories about who you are and where you come from. I firmly believe if we can understand each other that we can eradicate racism and stigma and pave the way for our future leaders. They can live in peace and walk our streets without fear of any harm. And I know that's important to all of us and sometimes there are some people, our brothers and sisters across the world, that are struggling at the moment and we need to remember them. We need to honour them and especially the ones that have passed. So offer you all my hand in friendship so that we can journey together. May Bunjil, my creator, surround us around you all and give you strength and resilience. Woman Jika Warren, Jerry Ballock Newman. Gundy pick. That means welcome to Burundi country. I signed on Goggin. That means. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your journey this morning and have a wonderful conference. Nun Gud and thank you.
Ricardo Gonçalves
Thank you, Auntie Diane Kerr. We have got four panels coming up today this afternoon, ranging from the ASEAN consumer economy, a digital transition, leveraging supply chains and investment and food futures and Agri tech. Before we get into the first one, there are a couple of people that I would like to call up on stage to hear from and to address us on behalf of the government with conference and opening remarks, I would like to call up on stage, the Assistant Minister for Trade and Manufacturing, Senator, the Honourable Tim Ayres.
Tim Ayres, Assistant Minister for Trade
Well, thanks, Ricardo. Welcome everybody. I want to begin by acknowledging that we meet on the lands of the Wurundjeri and I want to express my gratitude for that. Welcome to country. It is always slightly disconcerting to have a picture of yourself on the screen as you come up. I can tell you it doesn't get any less disconcerting over time, and every time I look at that photo, I think I'm not sure that reds doing me any favours. Of course, I think this is the first event today of the ASEAN Australia Special Summit. Thank you for all of you for being here. The level of interest that we've had with this conference has been just remarkable and the level of commitment from the business community in Australia and in the region is very gratifying. This year of course, marks the 50th anniversary of ASEAN Australia relations. In 1974, when Australia became asianna's first dialogue partner, we were not significant trade partners. And many of the ASEAN nations we're just beginning their journey of economic development. In contrast, today the combined GDP of the ASEAN block is 3.6 trillion U.S. dollars, and by 2040 the block is forecast to be the 4th largest economy in the world. And Australia's trade with ASEAN nations is greater than our two way trade with Japan, with the United States or the European Union, though we know that there is so much more that we can do to increase our economic engagement. I'd like to acknowledge Nicholas Moore, the special envoy for South East Asia who led the development of Australia's South East Asia economic Strategy to 2040. Nicholas spent many months consulting people and organisations across the region to develop this report, more than 200 written submissions were received and he consulted around 750 leaders in government, business and civil society during the drafting of the strategy. Last September when Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Wong launched Australia's South East Asia strategy at the ASEAN Indo Pacific, the ASEAN Indo Pacific Investment Forum, Prime Minister Albanese said “The strategy we outlined today reflects an enduring truth. This is where Australia's economic destiny lies, and this is where our shared prosperity can be built. This is where working together, the peace, stability and security of this region and the Indo Pacific can be assured. This means we will do more than just lower barriers to and then compete for investment. There will be no net gain to our region through beggar thy neighbour competition for investment. Instead, Australia must partner with the business and investment communities, and with South East Asian governments to direct capital towards the priorities, Australia and our South East Asian neighbours agree, are the most pressing, such as the green energy transition, our ageing societies and lifting living standards and equity through economic growth. Nicolas Moores just arrived, Nicolas. I was just being very nice about your 5 minutes ago, so you're very, very welcome. The strategy demonstrates that governments have the power to both focus and grow, trade and investment through our bilateral agreements. Our broader regional agreements, better regulation and harmonised standards, and fostering deeper cross border relationships. The strategy describes how the Australian government should plan to unlock opportunities that will benefit workers, businesses and the broader social, economic and environmental outcomes in both Australia and amongst our ASEAN partners. Prime Minister Albanese, on the very day the strategy was released, immediately committed to three initiatives that go to the heart of the report. First, $70.2 million over 4 years for investment deal teams who'll be on the ground in South East Asia engaging with Australian investors. Local businesses and governments. These teams will assist Australian companies that want to invest in the region and help infrastructure projects in ASEAN nations connect with Australian corporate and institutional investors. They'll partner with national authorities like the Indonesia Investment Authority and like minded international players to increase the opportunities and financing structures available to Australian investors. Recognising the wide range of challenges highlighted in the strategy. The deal teams will include professionals with backgrounds in finance, diplomacy and trade policy. Second, $19.2 million over 4 years for the South East Asia Business Exchange, which will boost two way trade through targeted business missions as well as a trade and investment promotion campaign to raise awareness of opportunities in the region back home in Australia. And third are placements and internships pilot programme for young professionals and exchange programme, which will help build enduring links between Australia and Southeast Asian businesses. Beyond these three measures, the strategy contains many proposals for how we can deepen trade and investment between Australia and the ASEAN bloc. And I'm very pleased to be able to tell you that during this summit, my colleagues will announce our support for further initiatives that will deepen our work on two way trade and investment in ASEAN and ensure that this work has real impact. The strategy is a step change in Australia's approach to the region. It strengthens our ongoing work promoting trade and investment by removing barriers through trade agreements to allow Australian and South East Asian businesses to invest and trade freely. Indeed, last year Australia concluded and signed the upgraded the upgraded agreement established in the ASEAN, Australia, New Zealand free trade area which is an acronym that while I was engaged in the negotiating of it, I struggled to pronounce, but it is indeed ASEAN’s most ambitious free trade agreement to date the upgraded ANZCERTA, there you go, includes for the first time a dedicated chapter on micro, small and medium businesses, and new commitments to support those businesses by boosting services, exports, investments and the digital and green economy sectors. The government is currently working to finalise Australia's domestic processes for the upgrade, and we hope to welcome its entry into force later this year. In addition to that agreement, businesses have also benefited in recent years from the 2022 entry into force of RCEP, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. Which is the world's largest trade agreement. Its size is an asset. Its single rules of origin can simplify matters for businesses conducting foreign trade for the first time, providing much greater flexibility for sourcing inputs and making it far less complicated and time-consuming to meet FTA documentation requirements. RCEP also includes commitments specifically designed to make it easier for businesses to trade within the region and to reduce various barriers. The fact is, whether you're an Australian business hoping to expand into the South East Asian market or a South East Asian business looking to do business in Australia, there has never been a better time to branch out into new markets. But the strategy also recognises that the priorities that governments identify bilaterally and the partnerships that we established with the investment community to deliver on those priorities, create opportunities to deploy capital in ways that also address the regions broader social development and environmental challenges. To give you perhaps an obvious example. Australia and the ASEAN nations have committed to net 0. A vast challenge requiring clean electricity generation, storage and transmission, greater energy efficiency and industrial transformation and diversification. And Australia and the ASEAN bloc nations must do this at the same time as we're promoting economic development. Put simply, we all require the lowest cost, lowest emissions transition to net zero. We won't be able to transition if we cannot deliver cheap and reliable energy for households and businesses here in Australia. And the same goes for our ASEAN partners. And this is at a time when countries across the world are simultaneously upgrading their infrastructure and their economies to meet decarbonisation objectives. Without smart intervention, this greater demand for capital will increase the cost of funding, and this is before we even consider the premium that developing nations pay to access capital markets. The scale of the investments required across the region in renewable generation, storage and transmission cannot be met by public expenditure alone. And if Australia and the ASEAN nations collectively, that the fastest growing region of the world in human history can't transition to net 0, the world stands little chance of meeting the decarbonisation challenge itself. Smart and strategic government can be the deciding factor here. Regional governments must work together to identify and support those investments that offer the greatest economic decarbonisation and industrial diversification spillovers. And governments must intervene to reduce risk and regulatory overheads, give clarity to private sector partners about project costs, time frames and potential reforms and potential returns. Smart Mission focused government investment will create in private sector investment in this joint effort, addressing our most pressing economic, social and environmental challenges and creating long term value for the investment community and ultimately Australian workers, of course, whose money it is. So I make this point and this carries for many other sectors where there are bilateral interests here and, bilateral priorities for Governments, it's not just about government getting out of the way and removing obstacles to facilitate private sector commercial opportunities, although this is important work and we must continue this focus. It is also about government as a strategic actor working with investors and firms to deliver on missions that shift the dial in economic, infrastructure, energy and social terms. The panel sessions and Nicholas, who'll be speaking next will be able to paint a picture of these opportunities for you. The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and forestry and the Minister for Trade and Tourism, my colleagues Murray Watt and Don Farrell, will also be speaking later. In making this SME conference one of the key events of the first day of this historic ASEAN and Australia Special Summit, the government is confirming its strong commitment to supporting businesses, the innovators, the founders, the drivers of our economy on your journey. We want you to succeed. We want you to succeed here in Australia. We want you to succeed in the region and your success, will of course, be the region's success. More trade between Australia and ASEAN means more commerce, better products at better prices, better services, better quality of life and ultimately better outcomes for all of us. We know in the government that there is so much more work that we must do, working in genuine partnership with you for our shared prosperity and economic security as we set out to deliver on the recommendations of the strategy and once again, I want to record my gratitude and the government's gratitude for Nicholas Moore's work on the strategy, it's a very important piece of work for the Australian government. It's is very centrally in the way that we are considering not just future economic developments, but the future of Australia's engagement with this region. So I wish you the very best for the rest of this part of the conference and I'm looking forward to very much to the, to the deliberations of the whole summit. Thank you. Thanks Ricardo.
Ricardo Gonçalves
Thank you, Senator Ayres. The senator was mentioning there, of course, the report on 2040. If you haven't had it a chance to look at it, even though it's been out for a while or you want a refresh, you can see it through the summit app. It's just in the section where it says about the summit. There is a link there that can take you to it, if you haven't download it, have a chance to do it. You also can opt into some notifications about some key events or appearances that's happening throughout the next couple of days. I would now like to introduce our next speaker, which is Nicholas Moore AO. Nicholas Moore was appointed Special Envoy for South East Asia in 2022. He led the development of Australia's South East Asia economic Strategy to 2040, which is a blueprint for deepening our economic engagement with the ASEAN region, which I just mentioned. Mr. Moore is former chief Executive Officer of Macquarie Group and has also held the Chair of the Sydney Opera House Trust and PCYC NSW, as well as holding directorships at Sydney Airport and Hills Motorway. Please make welcome Mr Nicholas Moore.
Nicholas Moore
Well, good morning, everybody and thank you Ricardo for that welcome and thank you for those very kind comment, senator that is much appreciated. Indeed, I'd like to start, as always, to acknowledge the traditional owners on the land we meet where we're meeting today, that we're Wurundjeri people and acknowledge their leaders past, present and emerging. As you heard, my focus today will be on the report that was commissioned by the government in November of 2022, I was delighted to be asked by the government to assist in the preparation of a strategy in terms of how Australia can increase its two way trade and investment between Australia and the region. I was delighted to take up the challenge and it has been very fulfilling and I'm very grateful for the warm welcome I've had from so many people as I travelled around the region and met with businesses who are looking at doing business in both the region and Australia. What came across of course was an incredible sense of optimism in terms of where the region is going and where Australia could be placed. Not perhaps today, but where it could be placed the vision I think I've received from so many people is that we've seen this story before from an Australian viewpoint, that Australia since the Second World War has seen waves of industrialisation, export LED growth, development of cities, starting with Japan. Of course, Taiwan, Korea most recently in China. And what we're seeing in South East Asia very much fits that pattern. We've seen before that has made us so prosperous today. Now South East Asia, of course is very special, having regard to its proximity, it is our neighbour, it's prosperity as the government has said consistently, its prosperity and security. Is our prosperity and security, and I think everyone I've spoken to when I was putting together this report and I I met with over 700 different people and we received over 200 submissions, all reflected this confidence in terms of the importance of how the region's are to Australia. So the way we approach the report, we took a top down view in terms of what was happening and then as I said, we had a bottom up view in terms of speaking to businesses in the area and particularly asking a very important question that you will probably guess very quickly. So as I mentionedthe terms of reference that the government provided us was a national strategy for greater trade and investment between Australia and the region. Now when I mentioned this across the region, people were very encouraged. This wasn't just about increasing Australian exports to the region or increasing Australian investment from the region. It was about boosting exports from the region to Australia and actually increasing investment from Australia in the region. The fact that it was a two way strategy was very warmly welcomed from all the. From all the regional businesses and government officials I met. Looking at the top down numbers big picture viewpoint, this chart shows that we have been that the region is a very significant trading partner for Australia today. Indeed, as a as a group, it's our second largest trading partner as you can see there China number one, but South East Asia is greater than our traditional trading partners of Japan, United States and Korea, for example. Now it's a good story over time, as you can see a consistent story. And this is consistency shows it's about 14% of Australia's total two way trade. Now this is this means it's been growing. Ohh so it's been staying at about the same rate since. As you can see here 2010 and if you go back further it's a similar story. It's been growing at the same rate as the Australian economy has grown. So that's the first point of note. We would obviously prefer to see it growing at the same rate that the region is growing, which of course is at a faster rate than Australia. So going forward the potential is not just if Australia keeps growing, our trade will go at the same rate we would like to see this trade growing at the same rate as the region that we are continuing to maintain our relevance. Indeed we are ambitious to be seeing that trade growing at a faster rate. This was probably the more alarming lesson that came out of the work that we did this is our foreign direct investment and the foreign direct investment of the region in Australia. Now you can see from a Australian viewpoint it grew as you can see there from about 2.5% in 2003 up to more than 6%. But sadly, as you see, it's come back recently to about 3%, so this is Australian investment in the region it started, it started low, it grew as a percentage of total foreign direct investment and then it came down. Meanwhile the investment from the region in Australia basically shows a continuous stepping up from that 2 5% level up now. To up now to more than more than 5%. so the at the moment the region is investing more in Australia than we're investing in the region, which is surprising when you consider the region of course is twice the size of Australia. It's particularly surprising when you look at the next chart and this is the rest of the world's foreign direct investment in the region, going from that 3.5% level in 2003 up to 7% today. So it's almost the inverse, you know, different time periods, of course, but almost the inverse of what's happening with Australia. So whilst the rest of the world has been stepping up the direct foreign investment in the region, our investment has been coming down. And indeed, if you look at our total foreign direct investment around the world, you can see how stark that story is where. Our investment in South East Asia is a is a little over 3%, compared with, say, New Zealand, a great country and all the rest, but substantially smaller. Remember, South East Asia is twice the size of Australia and New Zealand. Not quite that big. Our investment in New Zealand is 4% compared with 3% in South East Asia and of that 3% in South East Asia, 2% is in is in Singapore. So there's one little level 1% in the rest. So plainly there's something to be done. There's a lot to be done in terms of. Our investment in the region and it's particularly surprising if you think about the Australian economy today. Our corporate sector has never been stronger. It's never been more diversified, never been more skilled and never had greater access to capital both domestically and internationally, so our corporate sector has never been stronger. It is competing globally in many different sectors, and similarly we have a superannuation industry that is the envy of many in the world. It's one of the. In the world today, it has $3 trillion of assets under management and over the course of this strategy to 2040, that's expected to go to $9 trillion. So we've got substantial savings. We've got substantial capability, but something's happening, it's not actually coming together as we expect it should in South East Asia. Which by all reckoning is one of the fastest one of the two fastest growing regions in the world in recent times, and that is expected to continue to the extent that the consumer market in South East Asia alone is expected to be 10 times the size of Australia within the period of the reports being. On so massive opportunity on our doorstep. What's going on? What could we do if we if we actually got it right and now getting it right? This is showing what our our trade is today, which you can see is a little less than $4 billion. It could go to $14 billion if we're able to maintain a 4% growth over the period of the of the forecast obviously very, very important and very, very substantial. So what did we recommend the government should do well in in this excellent report that you'll see out the front, you can all see a copy in the in the marketplace. We made 75 different recommendations and I know you're busy, so I won't cover all the recommendations that I won't cover all the recommendations today, but just to say we've put them in four different categories. Number one, is raising awareness. How do we raise the awareness within Australian business of the opportunity that we've just touched on? What should we be doing? How do we actually talk about literacy more broadly? But specifically what we what do we need to do to actually increase the flow of knowledge of what's been happening in the region to Australian businesses. Secondly, we talk about removing blockages. I'll talk about in a second. We've got very good architecture in place between Australian and the region that largely allows the free movement of goods and capital across the region. But there are still few blockages there, things like visas, things like approvals. We'll talk about the sort of blockages we think we should remove. The third category is building capability, which is so important. These are the skills that we need in Australia. The skills that the region needs, the capability we need to be developing. The industries of the future and finally deepening investment Australia has a very substantial investment in the region and has had over many years as people, now our largest embassy in the world, is in Jakarta and Sir. The the diplomatic posts around the around the region are substantial, added to which we have austrade operating across the region as well. So we have substantial investment as well as that we've had substantial development projects in the region for many, many years. What can we do to deepen that investment to actually? Encourage the development our 75 recommendations go to each of those four different points. And indeed, we highlight a number of priority sectors where we see particular growth taking place that is relevant to Australia prior to coming here. I I just gave a presentation about green energy transition, a massive challenge for Australia, a massive challenge for the region working together on that challenge obviously makes. A lot of sense in terms of all the issues we talked about before, particularly things like capability. Building agriculture and food. Obviously it's a very large proportion of our trade today, but again, going around the region, there is a great ambition for the region to become a, a, a much larger processor of food, not just for their local markets, but globally as well. Resources as we know, Australia has a highly developed resource sector. A lot of our export to resource related, but there's a lot of potential in the region for resource development. How can we work together? In that infrastructure, of course, when we talk about the growth and per capita income taking place, we know it needs urbanisation, urbanisation is roads, it's airports, it's ports, it's all its power facilities obviously, all those facilities need they need capital, they need skills to develop education and skills, our number one services export to the region is education and skills. We are doing a lot, but the demand in the region for skills was reinforced every time I met with government officials and corporations there. How can we enhance what we're doing from an educational viewpoint, not just through universities operating in Australia but how do we have hybrid work and training. How do we develop those sorts of opportunities very much front and centre on so many different mines? The visitor economy, not just the visitor economy in Australia but the visitor economy in the region, of course. Healthcare, enough said. The digital economy. Great opportunity for Australia here, but of course great opportunity for the region in terms of what's happening there in terms of the connectedness that the in particularly the youth of the economy is driving forward. Professional and financial services and of course their creative industries, so lots of priority sectors. What the report does is very much highlights the importance of small to medium enterprises in terms of addressing this challenge. It's the key source as we know of innovation and employment in our economy and in the economies in the region. So we make a lot of cross cutting recommendation to drives greater commercial activity between Australian SME's and the region by way raising awareness to address the to address the lack of knowledge and by building capability coming back to these core recommendations to ensure Australia and the region have the skills and capability to pursue opportunities to address economic challenges. Well, Australia, as I mentioned earlier, Australia and Southeast Asia have a web of free trade agreements and Economic Cooperation architects, which has been established to help trade linkages and provide a strong basis to grow commercial ties. And the FTA's create commercial opportunities for free trade agree for Australian businesses of all shapes and sizes. In the report we've got this map and as you heard the Minister refer earlier to the complexity of these arrangements, we have a lot of arrangements in place, a lot of architecture in place. The bottom line though for small and medium sized businesses is that the movement of goods, around the region, particularly from Australia, is very free, we suffer very few blockages. Now that's the that's the idealised way. At the top level we recognise though the that small to medium sized businesses don't necessarily have the resources to navigate these sort of agreements that we that we have out there and one of the points made to us by large businesses and small businesses, when we were putting the report together, is the is small to medium sized businesses do need help on the ground, do need help on the ground to navigate the agreements and make sure their goods and services can flow freely. Now as I mentioned, fortunately we have a long history and a very large established diplomatic presence across the region to advance our interest and it also focused on two way trade and investment. As well as the Commonwealth Government, of course, the Australian State and Territory governments have trade and investment representatives in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. Again, they're primarily to help the small and medium sized businesses, as the large businesses have made clear to us, they, you know, government help is fine, but they can really navigate mostly without it. This infrastructure is very much in place for the small to medium sized enterprises and you should feel very free to call upon it. In terms of our recommendations, one of which was picked up and we're delighted to see picked up by the government, was investment deal teams. This is deploying professionals across the region to work with Australian investors, SE Asian businesses and governments on long dated projects. It'll be a joint venture between DFAT, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, AUSTRADE and export Finance Agency. Another recommendation we made was business missions to boost two way trade and support Australian exports to enter, compete and develop in fast growing South East Asian markets. Now I was delighted when I was walking around the marketplace earlier to see these two brochures, one by Asia link and one by Austrade talking about one of these business missions that's going to take place in Vietnam in April on the energy transition. This will be an example of many we hope, which will be focused on with a particular industry focus, designed to raise awareness to boost the knowledge boost connectivity between small and medium sized businesses in Australia, as well as large businesses with similar businesses in the region. So as a recommendation we made, it's been picked up and again it's been funded. Defat and Austrade are actually working together to make that a reality. So we've got deal teams, we've got business, business missions, another recommendation we talked about is trade and investment campaigns to promote opportunities in Southeast Asian Markets to Australian businesses and consumers. Some examples of SME's we met on the way through that have that are an example again in terms of this building awareness, one of the greatest way to build awareness from a business viewpoint of course is to talk about companies that have been successful in terms of developing new markets. Avo fresh, expanded it’s footprint and diversified it’s exports in South East Asia, with support from the Australian government, including through the Agri Business Expansion Initiative. Austrade is also helping Magellan Power take its ground breaking technologies into overseas markets. Magellan Power joined an Austrade trade visit to Vietnam and as a result signed a memorandum of understanding with an electric vehicle maker. Analyse, analyse AI is expanding into more markets. Austrade introduced the company to potential customers and partners in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. As a result, the AI powered tools support radiologists and clinicians to make speedier, more accurate diagnosis and improve patient care. Now obviously, there are many, many examples of small to medium sized enterprises, and I'm sure many of you are in the room today who have been successful in the region and continue to be ambitious. What we're focused on from a government viewpoint is how the government can assist recognising there is a special role that government can play with SME’s. Some of the conference sessions you're having today, we think are very much on point to where the opportunities lie. The Asian consumer economy, as we mentioned, it's expected to be 10 times larger than Australia by 2040. What a terrific opportunity. Digital transformation we mentioned before, it's a huge opportunity, $200 billion today, going to a trillion dollars. And as we know, with everything to do with digital transformation, these numbers tend to be under estimated. Again, the government has responded in terms of looking at landing pads and issues of that nature thinking about how it can develop those to actually assist Australian businesses in the region and of course regional businesses are here in Australia. Supply chains, supply chains have been foremost and everybody's mind as a result of COVID, a real point for everyone to be focusing on, particularly in the region, as most countries in the region are very focused on the China plus one story. Food futures and agritech are another area of course of Australian strength. Traditionally we've made a big contribution to the agricultural sector of so many countries in the region. What else can we be doing going forward there? Some of the other recommendations we made, we so some of the recommendations we've made which we've touched on before, including business missions. Another recommendation we've made, which hasn't been acted on yet, is to develop a strategy to engage with Australia's South East Asian Diaspora. As we know there's more than a million people from South East Asian background living in Australia. What a great asset we have that we need to work out how we can actually utilise that more in terms of growing this in greater and great engagement between Australia and the region. Where people have made the point to us. Imagine if in 1952 or 1955 when we started to grow our economic relationship with Japan, if we weren't just focused on exporting goods to Japan, if we had a million Japanese people in Australia, imagine how much deeper the links would be. Imagine if we had Australian universities operating in Japan back then. Imagine if we have the sort of connections that we have between the region and Japan which we have now in in the region. So we are very optimistic in terms of what can happen there with the people we have here. And of course, we've we already have export market development grounds, how do we make sure small to medium sized businesses in Australia are thinking about how they can use those grants to develop their businesses in the in the region. Now the action today I've touched on before, but just bringing it all together, it's more than 100, almost $100 million worth of spending commitments that the government has made in terms of the investment deal teams I talked about before, the business exchanges and the placement internships pilot programme for young professionals. These are just some of the recommendations we've made. The government also made a commitment to continue to work on the other recommendations with a view of coming back to view on all of them within a a reasonable amount of time. They actually said they'd be reporting back on an annual basis in terms of progress against them, and I know from my observation the government is working very hard across many different departments. Looking at those recommendations and trying to give life to them because it is very serious. I think we can all recognise, very serious in terms of deepening the engagement between businesses and investors in Australia and the region. Thank you very much for your attention today and I hope you find the rest of the sessions are very interesting indeed. Thank you for your time.
Ricardo Gonçalves
Thank you, Nicholas. Nicholas Moore there. It's great to hear about all the opportunities, interesting points there about the 1,000,000 people of our South East Asian origin of background in in Australia. Also gave me the idea of how SBS can also play a greater part in promoting and delivering those stories as well, given that that SBS has a connection to those communities too. I think we're ready for our first panel. We've got four panels here today. Our first one is on the ASEAN consumer market. They will discuss the trends in South East Asia. It'll go for about 65 minutes and then lead us into lunch, which will start at around about 12:00. The session is about the ASEAN region, projected to become the world's 4th largest economy, driven by a rising middle class already at 190 million people, driving demand across high value products and services. I would now like to call up our panellists and moderator. Moderating the panel will be Mr Xavier Simonet, a the CEO of the Australian Trade and Investment Commission. Panellists include Saskia Lower Hansen, deputy vice Chancellor International and engagement of RMIT University. Miss Safini Abdul Hadi, executive director of the LVK Group of company. Lee Howard, CEO of Asia link business. And Mr Mukund Narayana, Morty, Minister, Commercial and general manager, South East Asia for the Australian Trade and Investment Commission. A reminder too, as they're getting up ready for the panel to access the app. That's where you can get access to Australia's South East Asia economic strategy to 2040. Which Nicholas Moore was mentioning. There is a link in the about Summit page. I think with everyone ready, I'm going to hand over the moderation of this panel to Saviour Simone.