Report July 13 • 2018
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DBS ASIAN INSIGHTS CONFERENCE 2018 POST CONFERENCE REPORT JULY 13 • 2018 AIC-2018-004-cover-contents-intro.indd 1 16/08/2018 4:44:41 PM 02 The DBS Asian Insights Conference 2018 brought together top business executives, investors, overseas delegates, and distinguished speakers to discuss new social, economic, and political dynamics that are shaping the future of Asian markets and investment, digital transformation, and Asia 2030’s driving forces. Highlights of this special 50th Anniversary Jubilee Edition event included the DBS Asia Leadership Dialogue between famed author and professor, Yuval Harari and DBS Group CEO, Piyush Gupta. Distinguished speakers from the region included: guest of honour, Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat; Anthony Tan, Group CEO and Co-Founder of Grab; Ari Sarker, Co-President for Asia-Pacific at Mastercard; Amin Toufani, CEO of T Labs and Director of Strategy at Singularity University; Noeleen Heyzer, Former Under-Secretary-General of the UN; Peter Ho, Senior Advisor at the Centre for Strategic Futures and Former Head of Singapore Civil Service; Poon King Wang, Author and Director at Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities at the Singapore University of Technology and Design; Arjun Shetty, Portfolio Manager at Astignes Capital; David Skilling, Director at Landfall Strategy Group; Laurence Kwan, VP of Sunseap Group of Companies; Geert Peeters, Director and CFO of CLP Holdings; and Kenneth Akintewe, Head of Asian Sovereign Debt at Aberdeen Standard Investments. With four out of the top five economies in the world expected to be in Asia by 2030 and over 1,000 attendees including leaders from both the public and private sectors, this event provided an excellent platform to exchange ideas and reimagine Asia 2030. AIC-2018-004-cover-contents-intro.indd 2 20/08/2018 1:46:53 PM 03 AIC-2018-004-cover-contents-intro.indd 3 15/08/2018 2:10:51 PM 04 DBS ASIAN INSIGHTS CONFERENCE 2018 POST CONFERENCE REPORT CONTENTS WELCOME GLOBAL INVESTMENT OUTLOOK PIYUSH GUPTA Global events in the first half of 2018 06 Message from Piyush Gupta, Chief 32 have thrown markets into a tumult. Executive Officer, DBS Group Holdings Investors are holding back and waiting and DBS Bank. for sanguine market conditions. GUEST OF HONOUR KEYNOTE ASIAN REAL ESTATE OUTLOOK MR HENG SWEE KEAT Asia’s megacities are known for their size 14 Keynote address by Heng Swee Keat, 34 rather than investment potential. DBS’ Minister for Finance, Ministry of Finance. panel of property experts pored through more than 300 cities in the region to REIMAGINING ASIA 2030 present Asia’s top cities in 2030. NARRATIVES FOR THE FUTURE 20 Asia will change drastically by 2030. Before DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION considering potential opportunities and risks DISRUPTIVE DIGITAL AND THE to businesses, we first need to appreciate 38 TRANSFORMATION OF LARGE the magnitude of economic change. ORGANISATIONS Since its inauguration in 2012, Grab has PLENARY SESSION ON ASIA 2030 emerged as Southeast Asia’s first unicorn EXPONENTIAL CHANGE AMID THE and one of Asia’s biggest start-up success 24 FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION stories within half a decade. Piyush Gupta, Change is coming. For businesses to adapt DBS Bank Group CEO, sits down with and capitalise appropriately, they need to Anthony Tan, CEO and Co-founder of Grab, understand the key characteristics of the to find out why. Fourth Industrial Revolution. DIGITALISATION, BANKING, AND MARKETS AND INVESTMENTS CENTRAL BANKING G3 AND ASIA – MACRO, CURRENCY, 50 The current cost of printing and 28 AND RATES OUTLOOK circulating physical cash is exorbitant, The US-China trade war has the world’s though digital currency could counteract investors on edge. How much of their the costs. What will the medium of hesitancy is based on false premises? exchange be in 2030? AIC-2018-004-cover-contents-intro.indd 4 14/08/2018 4:33:03 PM CONTENTS 05 DIGITALISED DISRUPTION - REIMAGINING BUSINESS 52 Many of our current theories on the economy, successful business models, and the optimisation of choice no longer hold true today, declares Amin Toufani, CEO of T Labs and Chair of Finance and Economics at the Singularity University. ASIA 2030 DRIVING FORCES ASIA AND SINGAPORE 2030 56 In recent decades, Asia has experienced tremendous growth in its economies and wealth, with Singapore being one of its finest examples. However, the sustainability of rapid growth will become increasingly challenging in the coming decade. CHINA – BRI, AUTOMATION, AND THE EVOLVING SUPPLY CHAIN 60 Our panel of expert economists discuss why ASIA LEADERS DIALOGUE the future of China continues to look bright HARARI UNLOCKS THE FUTURE in 2030 and its significant driving forces. 68 Yuval Harari preludes the DBS Asia Leaders Dialogue with a deep dive into MEETING FUTURE ENERGY DEMAND the future of humanity. IN ASIA 64 With a growing awareness of the effects fuel YUVAL HARARI AND PIYUSH GUPTA has on the environment, there is now more MODERATED BY MARTIN SOONG pressure than ever to switch to a sustainable 72 The DBS Asia Leaders Dialogue gathers source of renewable and clean energy. the region’s most influential thinkers for a candid discussion with Piyush Gupta. This year, Yuval Harari shared insights into the pressing issues of technological advancements that might shatter the CLOSING REMARKS conventional structure of humanity. PETER SEAH Martin Soong, CNBC Co-Anchor, 97 Message from Peter Seah, Chairman, DBS moderated the discussion. Group Holdings and DBS Bank. AIC-2018-004-cover-contents-intro.indd 5 14/08/2018 4:33:25 PM 06 DBS ASIAN INSIGHTS CONFERENCE 2018 POST CONFERENCE REPORT AIC-2018-004-cover-contents-intro.indd 6 15/08/2018 2:11:13 PM WELCOME DBS CEO PIYUSH GUPTA 07 THOUGHTS ON THINKING ABOUT THE FUTURE PIYUSH’S WELCOME ADDRESS ur guest of honor, Minister of Finance, I sometimes think of DBS as an equally unlikely bank. Minister Heng Swee Keat, ladies and Fifty years ago, some 16 people were carved out from the gentlemen. It’s a real pleasure to welcome development finance part of the economic development you this morning. As you’ve heard already board to go and start a new bank. This new bank was and seen, it is a special year for us. It is our not even part of the Association of Banks in Singapore. O50th year. In point of fact, people often called Singapore But perhaps as a consequence, it was able to re-imagine an unlikely country. the rules and re-imagine the way banking was done. In some ways we believe that those starts, those origins, were propitious and actually helped anchor the kind of bank that we have become today, a bank that continues to strive to reimagine the nature of banking itself. As you can see, we are quite pleased with the journey we’ve had over these last 50 years. We grew from being relevant to Singapore to rapidly becoming a force to reckon with in Asia. Some five, seven years ago, we began increasingly to be recognized as Asia’s best bank. And in the last couple of years, we’re extremely proud of the fact that we are beginning to get global recognition. Euromoney’s recognition in the last couple of days as the world’s best digital bank for the second time is not an insignificant recognition because it comes in the face of some stiff competition from some of the leading banks in the world. AIC-2018-004-cover-contents-intro.indd 7 15/08/2018 2:11:31 PM 08 DBS ASIAN INSIGHTS CONFERENCE 2018 POST CONFERENCE REPORT The recognition as the world’s best SME bank further underlines that. The recognition is really testament to the way we are trying to digitize the entire SME ecosystem and the SME supply chain itself. A Very Brief History in Time We wanted to therefore use this occasion to try and do an insight conference with a little bit of a difference. We focus every year when we do this on the short term; what’s likely to happen in the markets, what’s happening in the economies, how you might position your businesses, your investment portfolios. This time we decided to take a slightly longer view, a view out at 2030. And as you can imagine, this is hazardous. Why is it hazardous? Well, let me just take you back to 12 years ago, 2006. If you remember, in 2006, Gmail had been launched in the US for just two years. It was just beginning to get launched everywhere else in the world. Facebook had been launched, but they had 10 million users, nowhere near like the 2 billion they have today. There was no iPhone, there was no Twitter, there was no Instagram, there was no WhatsApp. There was actually no global financial crisis, no nationalism, no Donald Trump, no irrational exuberance and no declining growth. Now, these are cyclical events. But structurally, you have to recognize that the pace of change has been so extraordinary that our lives in the way we live today are starkly different from the way we lived our lives in 2006. I was noticing this last year, just to give perspective, there were three and a half billion searches made on Google. 55 billion messages exchange on WhatsApp, six and a half million rides on Uber, 95 million posts on Instagram, and 500 million tweets of which I guess Donald Trump accounted for 80% of them. An Extraordinary Pace of Change The point is really this: the pace of change has been so rapid and so extraordinary. They’re trying to call what AIC-2018-003-cover-contents-intro.indd 8 08/08/2018 10:41:47 AM WELCOME DBS CEO PIYUSH GUPTA 09 might happen over the next 12 years is going to be frightfully difficult.