Building an Asian shared prosperity sphere

Chief executive officers and heads of leading industry chambers representing 13 business organizations from nine Asian economies, including India, Japan, China, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Chinese Taipei will be in Delhi to participate in the Fourth Asian Business Summit (ABS) in New Delhi on 30 - 31 July 2013.

The summit being organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) will have business leaders discussing the major challenges for Asian economies in view of the emerging global economic realities. The Asian Business Summit was initiated four years ago in 2010 in Japan.

Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma and Dr Montek Singh Singh, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission will address the participants at the summit.

The Asian region is an economically vibrant region with combined a GDP of 20 trillion dollars, about 28 per cent of the world's GDP.

With a population of 3.4 billion which is roughly 48 per cent of the total population of the world, the region has a large consumer market. Asia has the capacity for dynamic growth and is playing a major role in global economy.

It is vital for the Asian business community to strengthen intra-regional ties so that it can play a leading role in making this growth sustainable and help shape economies and societies where the private sector takes the initiative in leading the road to prosperity.

The Asian Business Summit is an important forum for leading business organizations across Asia to meet and deliberate upon the key issues that confront Asian economies, identify new cross-border partnership opportunities, as well as build a roadmap for accelerating the region's economic progress.

The last summit held in Bangkok saw deliberations on sustaining robust growth in Asia, deepening Asian regional integration, energy and environmental issues, promoting innovation and human resource development, infrastructure development and building robust supply chains in the Asian region.

Participants at the Fourth Asian Business Summit will seek to increase collaboration among Asian economies to stimulate Asia's growth, fiscal and monetary cooperation towards enhancing real economy, energy security and environment sustainability, regional infrastructure development, innovation, technology and human capital development and demographic challenges.

The response to the Summit being held in New Delhi has been received very positively by Asian business leaders such as Mr. Hiromasa Yonekura, Chairman, Keidanren (Japan) and Chairman, Sumitomo Chemicals; Mr S Gopalakrishnan, President, CII; Mr Vikram Kirloskar, Chairman, CII Innovation Council and Vice Chairman, Toyota Kirloskar Motor Private Ltd; Mr Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII; Mr Wang Jinzhen, Vice Chairman, China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), China; Ms Yin Yuanping, Executive Vice Chairperson, China Enterprise Confederation (CEC), Mr Suryo Bambang Sulisto, Chairman, Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KADIN); Dr Seungcheol Lee, Vice Chairman and CEO, The Federation of Korean Industries; Mr Egmidio S Jose, Chairman, Philippnes Japan Economic Committee, Philippines; Mr Tony Chew Leong Chee, Chairman, Singapore Business Federation ; Dr Theodore Mao-Hsiung Huang, Chairman, Taiwan Committee on East Asia Businessmen's Conference; Dr Kenneth C. M. Lo, Chairman Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce (CNAIC)i; Mr Chartsiri Sophonpanich Chairman, The Joint Standing Committee on Commerce, Industry and Banking of Thailand.

The summit is also expected to encourage industries across the region to enhance their global competitiveness through intra-regional partnerships that would accelerate Asia's economic integration, resulting in expanded regional trade and investment flows, strengthening of regional infrastructure, and deep cooperation in vital areas like energy security, environmental protection, economic inclusion of the underserved and regional security.