Corporate captains to form ASEAN Business Club

CIMB is backing club with SC Global’s Simon Cheong and Straits Trading’s Chew Gek Khim among the ten founding advisors.

The ABC will be positioned as a fully private sector driven initiative for ASEAN's major home grown corporations to come together and fully engage in ASEAN's community building efforts.

The 10 individual ‘founders’, which consists of some of the region’s most respected business leaders will sit on an Advisory Council to establish and guide the formation of the ABC.

The initial members of the Advisory Council are:

From Malaysia: Dato' Sri Nazir Razak, Group Chief Executive of CIMB Group and Dato’ Sri Tony Fernandes, Group CEO of AirAsia.

From Indonesia: Chairul Tanjung, Chairman of Para Group and Patrick Walujo, CEO of Northstar Pacific.

From Singapore: Simon Cheong, founder of SC Global Developments and Chew Gek Khim, Executive Chairman of The Straits Trading Company.

From Thailand: Chartsiri Sophonpanich, President of Bangkok Bank and Tos Chirathivat, CEO of Central Retail Corporation.

From the Philippines: Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, Chairman and CEO of Ayala Corporation and Cezar Consing of the Rohatyn Group

Amongst others, the Advisory Council will identify business leaders from the region to invite for membership in the ABC. The Council will also oversee the setting up of the Club and guide its activities.

Convinced of the importance of this project for the people of ASEAN, and mindful that private sector participation is a prerequisite for its success, the ABC will gather the influence, commitment and energy of ASEAN’s key business leaders in support of ASEAN integration.

The ASEAN Economic Community, or AEC, is ASEAN’s commitment to create a common market and production base out of the separate economies of Southeast Asia by 2015. The resultant grouping, functioning as a single economic entity, would be Asia’s third largest economy, with a population of 600 million and a GDP of more than
USD2 trillion.

On behalf of the founders, Dato’ Sri Nazir Razak said, “ASEAN needs to be more than an initiative of governments. The project to build an ASEAN Economic Community needs greater buy in, conviction and commitment of the private sector. The ABC will not only engage the ASEAN secretariat and governments but also provide a networking
platform for more collaboration among business leaders and companies across the region”.

ABC will be partnered by the CIMB ASEAN Research Institute (CARI). CARI will provide administrative and research support for the setting up of ABC.