The growth in ASEAN cities presents a significant opportunity for Australian business, which has immense experience in providing for the expanding needs of cities confronting urbanisation challenges from healthcare, utilising new technologies, providing for existing and emerging food needs, and solving infrastructure challenges. In order to help ASEAN address the challenges of creating smart cities, and ensure that Australian companies can effectively contribute to this growth, AustCham ASEAN is working with leading Australian companies in the following initial thematic areas:
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Agri-food and Supply Chain Logistics
With increasing urbanisation, it is anticipated that there will be significant demand for high quality, safe agricultural products such as meat and dairy that Australia is well-positioned to provide to the market. However, there exist a number of barriers to seizing this opportunity in ASEAN’s emerging cities. These include infrastructure bottle necks, with limited cold storage and first/last-mile infrastructure, and non-tariff measures that can make it difficult to navigate goods into markets. AustCham ASEAN is currently working on identifying these hurdles so that it can work proactively with ASEAN and the Australian business community to navigate an easy path to market. The corporate champion in this space is Meat and Livestock Australia. -
Digital Transformation
Technology has huge potential to solve the challenges of greater density, and the dramatic rise in mobile phone and smart phone ownership has led to the success of home-grown technological solutions in ASEAN such as Grab, GoJek, and the e-commerce provider Lazada. With the rise of machine learning and additive manufacturing changing the face of many existing industries in the region, local and national governments will seek smart solutions to the regulation of these emerging industries that encourage innovation, ensure that sufficient relevant skills exist in the local populations, while limiting potential downsides. AustCham ASEAN is looking forward to working with CSIRO in this space to assist ASEAN and Australian companies to understand how this could be successfully accomplished. -
Healthcare
ASEAN is undergoing a complex epidemiological transition, with the region vulnerable to persistent (e.g. malaria) and emerging infectious diseases and potential pandemics (e.g. SARS, Bird Flu) and the rapid advancement of non-communicable diseases (e.g. cancer, diabetes) which are now responsible for 60% of deaths in the region. Australia has a world-class health system and a long history of providing health services in ASEAN, and is well-positioned to meet the emerging needs of cities within ASEAN as they seek to cope with rapidly increased urbanisation and the challenges of an emerging middle class. ICON Group is our corporate champion in this space. -
Labour Mobility
Skills requirements are rapidly changing. As new supply chains emerge, grow and evolve within ASEAN, barriers to skills recognition, and movement of talented people within an organisation, make it challenging to successfully grow in new markets. Australia has world class education and training expertise, and experience in combatting skills shortages that could help ASEAN markets ensure that they have access to the right people to drive their economies through the fourth industrial revolution. Fragomen is AustCham ASEAN’s corporate champion in the labour mobility space.
Thematic Working Groups
AustCham ASEAN is organising a series of high level working groups in our initial thematic areas with leading Australian businesses to help support their business engagement in ASEAN.
These thematic working groups offer Corporate Members an ASEAN-wide platform to connect with firms facing the same challenges, exchange information on key issues and opportunities, and as a collective form an effective vehicle from which to drive change in the region. It is envisaged that the thematic areas will be expanded to cover education, infrastructure/energy, and tourism & aviation in response to the needs of Corporate Members. In addition, AustCham ASEAN will focus on areas which align with the advocacy and commercial priorities of the working group’s members.
Benefit to Corporate Members:
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Ability to nominate issues for discussion.
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Potential to take lead positions on issues of direct impact to their organisation.
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Positioning as experts and thought leaders in their field.
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Drive change through the working groups with relevant bodies in ASEAN and Australia.
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Publication of position papers to support advocacy activities.
For more information on becoming a Corporate Member of AustCham ASEAN, please click here.