Concepcion urges inclusive digital adoption in ASEAN

MANILA, Philippines — ASEAN Business Advisory Council chairman Joey Concepcion stressed the importance of inclusive digital adoption in Southeast Asia, ensuring that micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are enabled to access these tools, to achieve the opportunities brought by digital transformation.

Concepcion shared this sentiment during a panel discussion on ASEAN’s Digital Powerhouse at the Nexus of Connectivity and Transformation session of the ASEAN Business Investment Summit.

The session gathered some of the region’s biggest tech players, as well as key stakeholders from leading multinational companies, global financial institutions and government organizations.

The session delved into the development of strategic policies – including financial technology, e-trade and cross-border trade facilitation.

“All of these tools are important to uplift the lives of our people. That’s why we are here: how do we solve big problems especially for those who are at the bottom of the pyramid?” Concepcion said, noting that four of the 10 countries in the ASEAN have nearly a fifth of their populations still living in poverty.

“The power of digital has to be used. Crisis pushed people to use these tools and this is one of the reasons we in the ASEAN BAC Philippines proposed to sign an MOU (memorandum of understanding) with each ASEAN country to focus on sectors that will bring development, specifically agriculture and MSMEs,” Concepcion added.

The ASEAN-BAC chairman also emphasized that digitalization will stand to benefit even the one-man businesses who now have a better chance at succeeding because they have access to marketing tools and digital payment solutions.

“We are the big brothers … Unless we embrace the MSMEs in our value chain this is going to take a long time … That is our mission as ASEAN BAC heads, to see to it that greater prosperity is achieved,” he said.

ASEAN has emerged as the world’s fastest-growing internet market, with a 40 percent annual growth in the value of e-commerce between 2016 and 2021.

Further, it is set to become the world’s fastest growing digital market driven by a growing consumer market and the rapid adoption of social commerce platforms by its population.

Concepcion stressed that this growth must be inclusive in order to unlock the benefits, emphasizing that it must be used to enable MSMEs.

He cited the Philippines as an example of how digital technology has helped MSMEs compete with big corporations and given birth to a thriving digital economy that was further hastened by the pandemic lockdowns.

“We must enable MSMEs to use digitalization to their advantage,” Concepcion said, highlighting that digital growth is seen to boost cross-border e-commerce by providing MSMEs with access to new markets, and is hoped to promote financial inclusion to underserved populations.

Aside from Concepcion, also part of the panel were UK Department for Business and Trade Deputy Trade Commissioner for Asia Pacific (Southeast Asia) Sam Myers, Dynamic Technologies CEO Haslina Taib, Singtel CEO Yuem Kuan Moon and Singapore Business Federation CEO Kok Ping Soon.