ASEAN To Remain Competitive With 4.7 Per Cent Growth For Next 5 Years

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 3 (Bernama) -- Despite external headwinds and downside risk, ASEAN economies will remain strongly competitive, supported by its position as a global production hub, with growth rate expected to average at 4.7 per cent from 2016 to 2020, says The Conference Board. Its Chief Economist, Dr Bart van Ark, said at an average growth of over 4.0 per cent for the next decade, ASEAN would likely see high growth in investment to satisfy its infrastructure needs. "A stronger build-up of a consumer base, supported by the integration of product markets across ASEAN economies, can release a substantially larger consumer purchasing power," he said in his presentation on "Global Economic Outlook 2016" at a forum organised by the Asian Institute of Finance here, Thursday. van Ark said the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), together with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) or Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RPEC), could further facilitate regional product, consumer, and human capital integration and improve the region's global manufacturing and export competitiveness. "To advance the global value chain, a drive towards more innovation, more deep-seated reforms in the labour market, and investment in upskilling of the labour force will be key to productivity growth," he said. Meanwhile, for Malaysia van Ark said it was important that the investment agenda would be driven by higher return and faster productivity growth. "I think one of the real challenges for Malaysia is to let new companies grow and let existing companies that cannot drive growth fail...this is a way to reallocate resources to make the economy more productive. "Malaysia, while it has done a lot of good things...on innovation, technological change, the reform agenda has to be focused on more competition in the economy," he added. --BERNAMA