Report on TradeWaltz’s business trip to APEC and its subsidiary meetings

Arriving in Thailand by ANA’s NH847

Discovered airplane cloud during the flight.

ABAC* Lunch Talk
ABAC* Lunch Talk(*) ABAC stands for APEC-Business Advisory Committee.

On the 15th, the following members of the committee conveyed the importance of trade digitalization and the Japan-Thailand demonstration to 300 private-sector representatives from APEC.

(from left)
Kobsak Duandee: APEC-BAC, ASEAN-BAC, Thailand Trade PF Representative

Satvinder Singh: ASEAN Deputy Secretary General (ASEAN Economic Community)

Satoru Someya: Managing Director, Head of CEO’s Office, TradeWaltz Inc

Pamela Mar: Managing Director, International Chamber of Commerce Digital Director, Standards Initiative

Parnkae Nandavisai: Trade Digitization Area Specialist, Bankers Association of Thailand; Head of NDTP Practice, Thai Trade PF NDT

Screening of the project report video of the Thailand Trade PF “NDTP”.

Kobsak-san also talked about the collaboration with TradeWaltz as PoC Phase1.

Speakers + APEC-BAC Chairman (Kriengkrai Thiennukul) + Bangkok Bank Director (Kobsak Pootrakool, former Assistant to the Prime Minister’s Office, Thailand), etc.

Satvinder Singh (Deputy Secretary General of ASEAN) and Pamela Mar (Director, Digital Standards Initiative, International Chamber of Commerce) warmly commented that the demonstration of Japan-Thailand collaboration is a leading example in Asia and should be horizontally expanded to ASEAN and other regions in the future.

List of Speakers at the Event

TradeWaltz spoke in Session 2, “Demonstrating Collaboration between Thailand, Japan, and Singapore.

Introduction to the demonstration using the NDTP production video at the beginning

Discussion then moderated by Mr. Kobsak

At the end, a video created by TradeWaltz was played as an end roll.

Content will be distributed to online participants

*Third video was recorded and distributed

Group photo of the speakers

(Reference) Report article by Director Tat of Monetago, who participated in the event.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/need-needs-fintechs-digital-trade-transformation-tat-yeen-yap/

Dinner with Mr. Kobsak and the speakers

*TradeWaltz sat at the front of the line with

1) kobsak Duandee (NDTP Representative, ASEAN-BAC, APEC-BAC)

2) Satvinder Singh (Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN – ASEAN Economic Community)

3) Gil L. Gonzales (Managing Director, ASEAN-BAC)

and talked about the future of NDTP and its expansion in ASEAN.

Visit to AMEICC, Affiliated Organization of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which supports Japanese companies entering the ASEAN market

We expressed our gratitude to Bank of Ayutthaya for their follow-up of Thai users of the TradeWaltz-NDTP collaboration demonstration.

We had a chance to meet Mr. Kamezawa, President of MUFG, a shareholder of the company, at the evening reception (Gala Dinner).

Visit to Toyota Tsusho (Thailand), which cooperated as a demonstration user

We had a hearing about the issues at the trade industry with TTLS, Toyota Tsusho’s logistics subsidiary.

“Gala Dinner” gathering of CEOs/CXOs from APEC countries
We met business leaders from Thailand, Japan, United States and Cambodia.

One day program for APEC CEO Summit on the 18th.

The venue was ATHENE HOTEL

There were quite a lot of sessions, so I picked up three impressive ones below.

French President Macron was in charge of “Global Economic Trends.”
He announced that the United Kingdom is branding corn made from nuclear energy as a low-CO2 food, and is also working with South Africa and Indonesia.

The phrase “We want you to invest in the U.K. from now on.” was very impressive.

The venue was crowded with CEOs from APEC countries lining up to exchange business cards.

The Vice President Kamala Harris, from the U.S. Presidency of APEC 2023, spoke on the topic “The United States and the Indo-Pacific Region”. The main points of the discussion were as follows.

The U.S. is deepening its efforts in cooperation with the Indo-Pacific region, which accounts for 54% of the U.S. economy and is an extremely important region economically.

Specifically, US$5.2 billion has been invested in QUAD, US$26 million in recovery from COVID, US$2 billion in clean energy in the ASEAN region (Indonesia, for example), and US$37 billion in renewable energy by 2050, aiming for net zero. In the ASEAN region, for example, US$2 billion is being invested in clean energy in Indonesia.

The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) was established at the initiative of President Biden, and will work in partnership with the private sector in the areas of (1) digital infrastructure for trade, (2) supply chain resilience, and (3) clean energy. Economic relations with the Indo-Pacific region are a top priority for the United States.

“United States stands here.”

The last phrase of her speech was impressive.

The following is a summary of the speech by Ms. Tan Hui Lin, COO of Grab, a leading DX company in ASEAN, on the topic of “What is important to promote DX (Digital Transformation)?

The discussion was about how Grab has used digital technology to reduce the distance between those who want to provide services and those who want to have services provided to them to zero, and to provide a means for participants to always have access to a market of millions of people.

Grab should now (1) involve SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) that have been distant from digital technology, (2) create community-based services that solve local problems, and (3) develop local human resources.

(1) In order to provide digital access to SMEs, which account for 90% of the companies in ASEAN and employ 2/3 of the population, the company is currently providing a means to sell food through Grab to thousands of Thai farm households that have lost their sales channels through COVID, and has created a case study that shows a threefold increase in income.

(2) Up until now, most of the maps and information were written in urban areas, but they are also working on detailed information maps of rural areas and creating services that are rooted in the local community.

(3) When researching Grab’s future services and creating a Grab Campus to nurture human resources, investors had often suggested that it would be better to create a Grab Campus in the U.S. or China, but the CEO and I decided to ignore all suggestions and create one in Singapore, Indonesia, Phillipine, and other ASEAN countries. However, we ignored them all and decided with our CEO to build in the ASEAN region. Our services provide value to the ASEAN region, and we have a responsibility to nurture the next generation of local talent.

The baton of the host country was passed from APEC 2022 Chair (Thailand) to APEC 2023 Chair (U.S.)

Ms. Laura Lane, Director, CCA and Head of Sustainability, UPS, will chair the meeting.

In her speech, she said that the host country was still being selected, but the government later announced that San Francisco had been chosen.

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