Tony's talk: Is ASEAN still relevant?
On Wednesday, December 4th I attended the talk by Tony Fernandez in LSE. Yeay! I finally attended my first LSE talk event. I have been planning to go to one of these talks ever since last year, but unfortunately I have not been lucky enough to find the time to actually be there, too much unexpected responsibilities.
So anyhow, the talk was fun. He was a fun guy to listen to, and as expected the bulk of it was centered on Air Asia. But who could blame the guy, the brand is what made him who he is. If I may, by rebranding the company in a way he rebranded himself. Here is a man who held on to his idea; he had an idea and at the same time, he realized the potential of an untapped market back at home, then he went on at it without looking back.
I admire his life story, I do, and I honestly do think that Air Asia is a great brand to represent ASEAN. It is Tony's playground so to speak, his treasure chest. Air Asia is one of the leading players in the low-cost carrier industry here in Southeast Asia. AirAsia Group holds 32% of low-cost carrier (LCC) within the region, second only to the Lion Air Group.
Without delving into the history of how AirAsia rose to where it is now, let us return to what the whole talk was about. So, is ASEAN still relevant?
Tony for one is a big fan of it. Well, that certainly goes without saying, why would a businessman whose playground is in ASEAN have a reason to say otherwise? Sure, most in the private sector seems to think so too. I mean, sure, the free movement of labour and capital is highly welcomed, not to mention should the AEC comes into play in 2015, the wholes process of doing business in the region would be so much easier. As argued by Tony, having a single market working as a unit makes business a lot more convenient, in his case this mean he has less aviation authorities to be dealt with (since route rights has be negotiated with the corresponding countries' authorities).
Plus, the AEC would allow us to stand a bigger fighting chance when dealing with larger economies, namely the US and the UK, maybe even China for that matter as opposed as to having ten separate units. Overall, he agrees that ASEAN is relevant as he envisioned it to be analogous of the EU, (without the currency union of course).
So there you have it, Tony's thoughts on the relevance of ASEAN. It is interesting to see how the private sector views ASEAN. It is without a doubt, ASEAN is a great place to do business and invest.
As we can see, as a unit, ASEAN is perceived to be having better prospects for investment compared to even China, the tiger economy in the region. Thus one may conclude that the AEC got the green light it needed to go ahead, don't you think?
(I purposely left the discussion on smaller-sized firms since I have yet to dig out very much on it for now)
I leave the rest to you…….
So anyhow, the talk was fun. He was a fun guy to listen to, and as expected the bulk of it was centered on Air Asia. But who could blame the guy, the brand is what made him who he is. If I may, by rebranding the company in a way he rebranded himself. Here is a man who held on to his idea; he had an idea and at the same time, he realized the potential of an untapped market back at home, then he went on at it without looking back.
I admire his life story, I do, and I honestly do think that Air Asia is a great brand to represent ASEAN. It is Tony's playground so to speak, his treasure chest. Air Asia is one of the leading players in the low-cost carrier industry here in Southeast Asia. AirAsia Group holds 32% of low-cost carrier (LCC) within the region, second only to the Lion Air Group.
Without delving into the history of how AirAsia rose to where it is now, let us return to what the whole talk was about. So, is ASEAN still relevant?
Tony for one is a big fan of it. Well, that certainly goes without saying, why would a businessman whose playground is in ASEAN have a reason to say otherwise? Sure, most in the private sector seems to think so too. I mean, sure, the free movement of labour and capital is highly welcomed, not to mention should the AEC comes into play in 2015, the wholes process of doing business in the region would be so much easier. As argued by Tony, having a single market working as a unit makes business a lot more convenient, in his case this mean he has less aviation authorities to be dealt with (since route rights has be negotiated with the corresponding countries' authorities).
Plus, the AEC would allow us to stand a bigger fighting chance when dealing with larger economies, namely the US and the UK, maybe even China for that matter as opposed as to having ten separate units. Overall, he agrees that ASEAN is relevant as he envisioned it to be analogous of the EU, (without the currency union of course).
So there you have it, Tony's thoughts on the relevance of ASEAN. It is interesting to see how the private sector views ASEAN. It is without a doubt, ASEAN is a great place to do business and invest.
As we can see, as a unit, ASEAN is perceived to be having better prospects for investment compared to even China, the tiger economy in the region. Thus one may conclude that the AEC got the green light it needed to go ahead, don't you think?
(I purposely left the discussion on smaller-sized firms since I have yet to dig out very much on it for now)
I leave the rest to you…….
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