ASEAN World Economic Forum kicks off in Kuala Lumpur

The 25th World Economic Forum (WEF) for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) kicked off in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday with more than 40 senior government leaders attending as well as key business players, academics and lawyers in the discussion to shape the 10member community’s future.

“We must concentrate on where we are now and provide tangible benefits to our people so we build the ASEAN community both in the minds and hearts of our people and also practical ways,” said Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak in his speech at the opening plenary for the session ‘Shaping the ASEAN Agenda for Inclusion and Growth’, posted on the WEF website.

The twoday forum, which is cochaired by academics, advocates including Amnesty International’s Secretary General Salil Shetty, and includes university youth leaders, aims to focus on job creation to address unemployment in the ASEAN subregion.

With the rise of technology and automated machines pushing out lowskilled labor, a phenomenon the WEF has termed the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’, combining national markets to influence world trade is key for growth.

“If ASEAN were a single country it would be the seventhlargest economy in the world,” says the WEF, touting the combined GDP of $2.5 trillion in 2015 and predicting the rise of the ‘economic powerhouse’ to the fourth largest export region globally by 2050.