Keynote Address
by H.E. Dr. Surakiart Sathirathai,
Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand,
at the
Asia 2015 Conference, London, 6 March 2006
“Can the Rise of Asia be Sustained?:
Meeting the Challenges of Development in Asia”
Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I wish to begin by thanking the organizers of the
Asia 2015 Conference for kindly inviting me to deliver a
keynote address in this Session which rightly looks to the
future by posing the question “What are the Challenges
and Risks to Development?” Indeed, this gathering
of renowned leaders, policy-makers and scholars, from Asia,
Europe and elsewhere, is a rare occasion of which we must
take advantage to come up with ideas on how to meet the
challenges to development in Asia but also to the inter-linked
issue of the challenges to peace and security in the region.
The year 2015 was not chosen by accident. That is
the year when we, the international community, are committed
to meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which,
we all hope, would bring those neglected by development
and marginalized by globalization into the economic mainstream.
By then, we hope that they can also share in the prosperity
and have their human security needs fulfilled.
Notwithstanding the MDGs, in many ways, Asia will
also be the test battleground on whether the international
community can come together to meet the challenges and mitigate
risks to development.
If we succeed, and given good leadership and management,
we can look to a more prosperous Asia with secure economic
and social foundations that will help co-drive the global
economy and extend a helping hand to other developing regions.
But if we fail, then the global effort to bring prosperity
to all may suffer a setback and other regions will lose
an invaluable ally in the fight against poverty and underdevelopment.
We cannot afford to fail.
Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Where does Asia stand today?
The Asia you see today is essentially an Asia of
two faces.
The dominant face of Asia is one of a rising Asia
of immense potential. It is an Asia characterized by several
centres of sustained economic growth, trends of region-wide
growing prosperity and economic success stories across the
region.
Asia harbours some of the most dynamic financial
and commercial hubs in the global economy, from China to
Japan to India. The region boasts vibrant newly industrialized
economies as well as many countries on their way to achieving
most, if not all, of the MDGs. If present trends continue,
it is predicted that Asia may account for more than 50 percent
of the global GDP within the next three decades or so.
Asia has over half of the world’s foreign currency
reserves. That amounts to some one trillion US dollars.
The region is riding the wave of Free Trade Agreements,
with 38 functioning FTAs and an additional 22 under negotiation.
Asia still serves as one of the biggest suppliers of global
fuel while the region’s airports and seaports rank
among the busiest serving the region’s economy. Business
entrepreneurship is alive and well—according to global
rankings, 18 Asian corporations count among the top largest
corporations in the world.
According to the Asian Development Bank, nearly all
Asian developing economies grew by more than five percent.
2005 may have witnessed decline in growth rates but they
still remain strong. According to the World Bank, growth
in the East Asia region is expected to reach a little over
six percent. Despite external shocks such as the doubling
of crude oil prices over the past two years, the World Bank
sees unexpected strong regional resilience in many parts
of Asia, partly due to growing domestic demand and a stronger
indigenous private sector.
This is an Asia that has the potential to achieve
the MDGs by 2015, the opportunity to rise and become an
important co-architect of the global economy of the future
and the chance to extend its helping hand to other regions.
But this general sense of optimism is tempered because
we must recognize that there is also another face of Asia.
The face that is marked by the fact that Asia is home to
the majority of the world’s most impoverished people.
That is the face of poverty where the human potential of
marginalized populations remains untapped.
Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Despite Asia’s well known success in reducing
poverty, poverty still permeates the entire region. More
needs to be done. Asia is still home to seven in ten of
humanity’s poor—approximately 700 million people.
Asia has more people without adequate nutrition and access
to water and sanitation than any other developing region.
Half of Asia’s population still lives on less than
two dollars a day.
What exacerbates the problem, however, is the general
trend of rising inequality between the haves and have nots,
within countries and between countries. For many, the problems
are structural, for some the problems have to do with policy
and management issues. But whatever the cause, this widening
gap in many places in Asia is a manifestation of uneven
growth. At best, these gaps create pockets of poverty which
are home to unused or underused human potential. At worst,
the increasingly marginalized poor can become social time
bombs. To defuse these bombs, not only should we be determined
to achieve the MDGs but we in Asia must address this complex
problem through development, social policy and local solutions.
There are also other key threats to human security
in Asia that will continue to pose challenges to the region’s
development. Pandemics have the potential to disrupt Asia’s
rise. Look at HIV/AIDs for example. Although HIV infection
levels in Asia are low compared with other regions, the
large populations of Asian countries means that even low
national HIV prevalence translates to large number of people
living with HIV/AIDs. Latest estimates show some 8.3 million
people living with HIV in 2005 including 1.1 million people
who became infected in the past year alone. Avian flu has
been successfully dealt with so far but unless stronger
preventive measures are in place, the next round of outbreaks
may have a much more debilitating impact on sustained growth
in the region.
Looking beyond people to other factors, we see that,
unless there are major shifts in investment strategies,
Asia will be increasingly deficient in terms of energy which
could have a long-term impact on its sustained growth and
development. Asia is a net importer of energy even though
it is one of the largest producers of crude oil. Not enough
has been done in terms of developing more efficient uses
of energy. Less has been done to develop alternative energy
sources including biofuels, despite the fact that alternative
energy development has been one of the highlight of almost
every important summit in Asia from subregional Summit between
Thailand and her neighbouring countries called ACMECS in
Bangkok to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation or APEC
Economic Leaders Meeting in Busan to the ASEAN Summit and
East Asia Summit in Kuala Lumpur last year.
Stable political and social conditions are necessary
to nurture sustained growth. The rising trend of extremism
in Asia, a region already the most diverse culturally and
historically of all regions, can threaten the stable environment
necessary for development to take place and prevent a peaceful
rise of Asia to be completed. As has been seen, a conflict
can wipe out a generation of economic progress in a single
day whereas communities trapped in the nightmare of poverty
can stoke the embers of ethnic conflict and political extremism.
Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The challenge before us is therefore how to nurture
Asia’s growth and development so that the problems
posed by poverty, inequality, threats to human security
and extremism are resolved—and resolved peacefully.
Much will revolve around the policies of Asian countries
and the choices that they will make.
At the national level, I believe that human-centred
development is the key to ensuring that basic human needs
are met, that there is full harnessing of the human potential
and that all have the opportunity to participate in the
development process. No one should be left out. This mindset
involves recognition of the innate value of every individual’s
contribution to wealth creation. In the long run, such a
mindset will help lay the groundwork for reversing marginalization
and closing the development gaps within countries. Thailand,
as Chair of the Human Security Network this year, will continue
to champion the human-centered development process.
Successful harnessing of this human potential will
have to be supported by other measures. Development policies
must be guided by principles of good governance and a strong
commitment to empowering people, economically, socially
and politically. Their rights have to be protected and promoted.
People must also be encouraged to be innovative and creative,
such as through promotion of lifelong learning, if they
are to be successful in value creation. But let me stress
that there is no one size fits all approach. Human centered
development and related supporting activities must be fine-tuned
and tailor made for specific national circumstances.
International assistance and developmental partnerships
can serve as important force multipliers to ensure that
human-centred development is successful. In this connection,
we should welcome various innovative financing mechanisms
being proposed, such as the tax on international solidarity
contribution to airline ticket and international finance
facility, to help finance development efforts in Asia or
elsewhere.
When conducted at the regional level, such assistance
and partnerships can help identify and develop synergies
across boundaries and contribute to closing the development
gaps between countries as well. That is why regional cooperation
and integration, reinforced through extra-regional development
partnerships, are crucial to the ongoing efforts to meet
the challenges of development within Asia. This is where
South-South cooperation can interface with North-South cooperation
to help ensure that growth and development is sustainable
and balanced.
Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I submit that, beyond national policies, if one is
to ensure that Asia is to succeed in sustaining its growth
and development in an inclusive and balanced manner, where
all Asians are stakeholders and participants in this process,
then enhanced cooperation within and gradual integration
of Asia is an important development that needs to be encouraged
and nurtured.
Already, Asia is the beneficiary of multiple regional
integration and regional cooperation efforts.
In the area of trade, we have the ASEAN Free Trade
Area (AFTA) and the envisaged establishment of the ASEAN
Economic Community, the ASEAN Security Community and the
ASEAN Socio-cultural Community, as the three main pillars
of the ASEAN Community, by 2020 in Southeast Asia.
Beyond Southeast Asia, we have the ASEAN+3 which
involves ASEAN Member Countries in economic and sectoral
cooperation with China, Japan and the Republic of Korea.
This cooperative forum has laid the groundwork for the development
of an East Asia Community and the launching of the East
Asia Summit. An emerging East Asia Community shows that
cooperation in Asia is not just defined by geographical
frontiers but rather the willingness of countries to cooperate.
On the one hand, we can say that an East Asia Community
that is taking shape has a new meaning, encompassing India,
Australia and New Zealand. On the other hand, we can say
that if countries are willing to work for cooperation, then
cooperation need not be bound by geographical frontiers
to be meaningful.
In South Asia, it is encouraging to note that the
SAARC countries have realized that trade and economic cooperation
would be a tool to make their aspirations for poverty eradication
come true. That is why they initiated the South Asian Free
Trade Area (SAFTA). At the same time, several countries
in South Asia realize that they have to look east to Southeast
Asia while countries in Southeast Asia realize they have
to look west. Therefore, the linkage that bridges the Look
East Policy of South Asia and the Look West Policy of Southeast
Asia has been forged within a multi-sectoral framework of
the two subregions. This is called BIMSTEC, which is a cooperation
framework covering both economic, technical and free trade
initiatives of the two subregions.
The objectives of these arrangements revolve not
only on trade generation and wealth creation, they also
focus on jointly tackling challenges to development such
as the development gaps within and between countries. ASEAN
for instance has placed the closing of development gaps
high on its agenda with the launching of the Vientiane Action
Plan in 2004 to reinforce its Initiative for ASEAN Integration.
Thailand, on its part, reinforces such efforts through its
economic cooperation strategy initiative called ACMECS,
designed to assist its neighbouring countries, with the
assistance of Development Partners including European countries.
These various sub-regional arrangements form a web
of intra-regional economic linkages that can only help promote
sustained growth and development in Asia. These sub-regional
arrangements are also linked through the growing number
of bilateral and regional FTAs in Asia. By 2017, for example,
ASEAN should have its regional FTAs/CEPs operationalized
with Australia, China, India, Japan, ROK and New Zealand,
forming an economic “sphere” of some three billion
people and nine trillion US dollars in GNP.
Asia should always be open and outward-looking as
it proceeds on its peaceful rise. But Asia will also have
to rely more on itself in promoting human-centred development
and in surmounting obstacles to development. That is why
I believe that the long-term solution to Asia’s developmental
challenges lies in bringing Asia closer together to take
advantage of its assets and synergies while working closely
with other regions and playing a full part in globalization.
Asia needs an Asia-wide cooperation that can pool
resources, turn diversity into strength, and render Asian
potentials into tangible outcome for all sectors of the
Asian population.
The Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) marks the first
ever pan-Asian cooperation forum to generate partnership
and strength of Asia from Asian diversity and differences.
This framework represents a new paradigm of cooperation,
serving to fill in the missing linkages between existing
intra-Asian cooperation arrangements. ACD is now comprising
28 Asian countries from all corners of Asia: West to East,
North to South, Central and Southern Asia. They are from
the Gulf states to China, Japan, Republic of Korea, Russia,
from Kazakhstan to India, Pakistan and ASEAN countries.
The ACD is working towards the strengthening of Asia
in order to steer the continent towards a community that
contributes to global prosperity and sustainable development.
The ACD marks an important cornerstone of building an Asian
Community.
The significance of the ACD, ultimately, is in its
ability to create an atmosphere of trust and confidence
within a region that is traditionally the most diverse and
divisive of all regions. For if Asia is to continue on its
peaceful rise and promote human-centred development region-wide,
it must have the foundation of peace and stability to anchor
it. This is the true value added of regional cooperation
and integration.
On the financial side, a new financial architecture
structure is taking shape in Asia to ensure that Asia’s
foreign currency reserves are used in the region to provide
greater stability to regional financial markets. The efforts
to build this new financial architecture for Asia began
with the Chiang Mai Initiative which encourages the development
of bilateral SWAP arrangements between Asian participating
countries. The Asian Bond Market is the latest development
to help ensure that Asia’s savings are used within
the region to generate growth, employment and greater purchasing
power for our people. An Asian Bond Market would also serve
as an alterative market for international and regional investors
and help make the international financial architecture more
balanced and stable. In a few months time, Finance Ministers
of the Asian Cooperation Dialogue or ACD will meet to advance
their cooperation for the Asian Bond Market.
These instruments are precursors to more enhanced
Asia-wide cooperation in finances which may in the future
lead to some Asian Monetary Authority that will help lend
greater stability to fluctuations in currency valuations
in Asia as well as generate the necessary funds to help
finance the development efforts in the Asian region.
Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We are in a defining period in Asia’s history.
The two faces of Asia must be addressed in a balanced manner.
If Asia neglects to address the various underlying problems
to its developmental challenges, then its growing economic
prosperity may risk not being sustainable in the long run.
A rising Asia that neglects to address its developmental
challenges will sow the seeds for its own eventual fall.
This would be a lost opportunity for Asia and for the world.
But I am confident that we are beginning our journey
towards sustainable development in Asia on the right path.
I believe that through commitment to human-centred development,
through close partnerships with the international community,
through active engagement in globalization and through enhanced
regional cooperation and eventual integration, Asia can
successfully meet the challenges of development and continue
on its peaceful rise without creating islands of poverty
and pockets of marginalization. But this is a path where
Asia and its non-Asian partners must travel together. This
is a path of partnership.
I believe that an Asia that can meet its MDGs in
2015 will emerge as an even stronger engine of growth to
the global economy and a partner of development for other
regions. Such an Asia, at peace with itself and with the
world, can only reinforce multilateralism and secure a prosperity
that benefits the many and not just the few.
Thank you.
