The Economist Regional Briefing: Resilient Growth in Times of Geopolitical Volatility

Geopolitical volatility, industrial policy and high interest rates are changing trade and investment flows globally, yet Asia, and Southeast Asia in particular, seems to be benefitting from these geo-economic trends. We will discuss the short-term economic outlook and put these trends in context to see what opportunities and challenges there are for businesses in Asia.

Agenda:

11:00 - 11:03 Victorian Government Trade and Investment Southeast Asia opening

11:03 - 11:48 Presentation by Mr Sumana Rajarethnam, Director, Economist Intelligence Corporate Network, Southeast Asia

11:48 - 11:58 Q&A

11:58 - 12:00 Victorian Government Trade and Investment Southeast Asia closing

Speaker:

Mr Sumana Rajarethnam

Director, Economist Intelligence Corporate Network, Southeast Asia

Sumana Rajarethnam is the South-east Asia director of the Economist Corporate Network based in Singapore. Sumana works closely with network members to help inform their business strategies through political, economic and operational insight and to connect them with their senior leadership peers.

Sumana is a senior policy professional with 20 years of business advisory experience. He has most recently been working in the Chinese technology sector, including stints at Kuaishou Technology and ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. He is the co-founder of MyBasket.sg, a platform that allows users to calculate their personal inflation.

Before joining The Economist Group, Sumana worked as a journalist and in public relations with a focus on government and institutional clients. He served as executive director of the Asian Dialogue Society, working to develop an alternative ASEAN Charter with leading policymakers, and organised the “Building a Better Asia” series, a programme for young leaders across Asia undertaken with Peking University and the Nippon Foundation.

Sumana holds a BA in political science from UCLA and a Master's degree in public policy from the University of Michigan.

Topics of Presentation:

Global forecast
Inflation
Currencies
Interest rates
Geoeconomic trends
Geoeconomic volatility
Geoeconomic trend: Industrial policy and trade tensions
What is industrial policy and why is it back?
Asia as the fastest growing FDI destination
FDI trends in Southeast Asia
Tariffs - butterfly effect
Bans on high-end tech and minerals
Policies around foreign companies doing business in the region
Comparison of ID, VN, MY, TH and PH
AI trends beyond the hype
Risks outside the core forecast
Opportunities outside the core forecast