“Building a Sustainable Future of the Asean”

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Speech at the Section “Building a Sustainable Future” in the Asean Buz Summit 2011 in Bali- Indonesia 

With these first words, I would like to wish all of you good health and success.  I also want to express my sympathy and condolences for the severe flood damage suffered by Thailand, which is one of many natural disasters we have encountered this year as the result of climate change: Flooding in Thailand, earthquake in Turkey, Typhoons in Vietnam and the Philippines, earthquakes, tsunamis in Japan...

Along with the world population that is growing rapidly at 1.1% per year, and has reached 7 billion in October, 2011, the world is facing a serious challenge of food insecurity. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), currently, there are approximately 1 billion of undernourished people in the world, of which over 80% live in Asia Pacific and Africa.

With a population of 7 billion, the world’s demand for food is approximately 1.4 billion tons per year.  However, only about 1 billion tons is available, which means we currently lack at least 400 million tons of food per year.

The ASEAN region is with favorable natural conditions for agricultural development. Thus, in my view, we have a responsibility, deriving from our own interests and also from the common interests of the world, to focus on developing agricultural products for export, especially to emphasize on rice production (the staple food for more than 50% the world’s population).

The 3 primary benefits that agriculture can bring to ASEAN member countries are:

-       Firstly, Agriculture is an effective weapon to fight against the short-term difficulties of economic recession and the risk of a double-dip crisis. Food is the product that everyone has to consume in any period, especially during the crisis period. As the result, food export will not be much affected the economic crisis – even if the world has to face a real double-dip crisis. Moreover, food production creates between 90 to 95% value added, so food export will generate a great amount of revenue for individual state budgets and the overall ASEAN economy.

-       Secondly, Ensuring food security is the key to build a  sustainable future for ASEAN

-       And thirdly, as the "Kitchen of the World", the export of agricultural products will be an effective tool to help the ASEAN region emerge as a major power in the world. This will bring many advantages for negotiations and relationship with other partners, as well as enhance the influence and presence of the ASEAN region in the world arena – similar to how the OPEC countries have taken advantage of their petroleum resources.

ASEAN member countries should make all possible effort to exploit their comparative advantage through agricultural production (similar to OPEC countries exploiting their petroleum reserves and China exploiting its rare earth commodities).  

At present, ASEAN member countries have developed several cooperative programs in agriculture and forestry along with other tax reduction programs for agricultural products.  Nevertheless, these measures have only helped to strengthen intra-ASEAN trade, and have had little effect on enhancing extra-ASEAN export.  We need to exploit all the advantages that agriculture brings, and further enhance ASEAN cooperation in agricultural production towards increasing production, productivity, quality, logistics, and marketing – especially in rice production, the product that ASEAN is a world leader in producing.

According to the FAO, the price of rice will double by the year 2020 due to the impact of climate change and policies of increasing rice reserves and rice export restriction within rice exporting countries.  Due to the risk of a double-dip crisis, the financial market, real estate market, and other industries relying on exporting to developing countries have been stagnant. This is an appropriate time for the ASEAN enterprises to shift their investments to rice production in particular and food production in general. I recognize a great potential for ASEAN cooperation in this sector. All member nations must work together to establish concrete scientific collaboration efforts to support one another. We must focus on biotechnology and genetic modification to improve yield and discover new rice varieties.  This effort will lead to both higher food quality and improved economic conditions for farmers.  Successful implementation of this strategy leads to not only improved living standards for domestic residents but also feed the 1 billion hungry people in the rest of the world.  Proven cases have already been shown when Japanese scientists successfully created a rice crop with high yield (30 tons per year), very nutritious, and highly praised for taste.

The current top two rice producing countries (Vietnam and Thailand) are both facing their own challenges.  Vietnam is still economically undeveloped, and Thailand is facing political instability.  Therefore, intensive rice production is still constrained. More scientifically advanced nations such as Singapore (who recently succeeded in creating a new type of orchid that is more colorful and easier to grow) can help Vietnam by sharing their experiences.  Furthermore, ASEAN member countries possess many different advantages beyond scientific knowledge that can support each other tremendously.  For example:

·      Singapore with advantages of marketing, management, logistics and capital

·      Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar with advantages of production, natural conditions, seed, rice ...

We have all the essential components to lay a solid foundation for us to believe in a partnership for the future.

To promote this cooperation, I recommend that all ASEAN Governments create more favorable conditions by implementing the following measures:

·      The first measure is to Unanimously approve the principles of ASEAN capital market to put this initiative into reality as soon as possible to create a legal framework to facilitate the intra-ASEAN investment.

·      Secondly, we have to Issue policies to encourage investment in agriculture, especially encourage intra-ASEAN agricultural investments with tax incentives, allowances and the clear and simple policies of land for agriculture production.

·      Thirdly, we also need to Promote the role of OREC in enhancing intra-ASEAN investment in rice production, marketing, balancing supply and demand, and price adjustments.

·      The last measure, but not less important, we have to Create more favorable conditions of logistics, customs and taxation to facilitate the move of agricultural products, machines, seed and other essential materials for agricultural production in ASEAN member countries.

Before concluding this speech, I would also like to share with all of you a personal belief that has been the driving force for most of my life thus far.  That is, I believe that in order for ASEAN member countries to emerge as serious players on the world stage, we must put strong emphasis on educating our next generation.  Only through knowledge and education that we can reduce the gap between our economies, politics, and cultures.  All of the most developed countries in the world have one thing in common, that is, they all have high quality universities in the top 100 universities of the world.  ASEAN nations must aspire to have more of our own universities in the top 100 in order to create the next generation with an ASEAN identity.  The new generation must be cultivated to have ASEAN hearts and ASEAN minds.  The newly created ASEAN Scholarship is an important step toward this goal.  All ASEAN member countries must take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to help their new generations toward a brighter future. 

To conclude, I thank all of you for your time and attention.  Once again, I wish everyone good health and a successful meeting.