KUALA LUMPUR: Asean should develop its technology industry and not fall behind in the global artificial intelligence (AI) race, said Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari.

He highlighted the importance of embracing new technology, as countries like the United States and China lead the digital realm, driven by technology giants such as Apple, Google, Amazon, Tencent, JD.com and Alibaba.

“While Asean is playing a pivotal role in the supply chain of chips, the Asean bloc can tap into its vast knowledge to develop its own tech companies by using 5G and exploring the fields of digital education, healthcare predictive analysis, renewable energy, fintech as a service and more efficient logistics,” he said in his keynote address yesterday at the Selangor Asean Business Conference (SABC) 2023 themed “Selangor, Epicentre of Asean: Leveraging Diversity, Catalysing Opportunity, Creating Prosperity.”

Amirudin stressed the need for Asean countries to prioritise intra-Asean trade over external partnerships and encouraged a shift towards thinking “Asean first.”

“We can no longer behave as proxies of the western world. We must now think “Asean first”. While we are very much a trading bloc, we trade more with countries outside of Asean compared within Asean.

“Despite boasting trade and FDI figures of US$3.8 trillion and US$224.2 billion, respectively, we in Asean are not trading with each other in the region. Political leaders in Asean must discuss, outline and negotiate a new regional strategy for human progress by developing an intra-region comparative advantage,” he said.

Amirudin suggested beginning with the nearest and clearest threats, which are food security, climate change and creation of higher-paying jobs.

“By engaging in healthy competition, I believe countries and business leaders in Asean can prevent a race to the bottom in terms of competing to pay the lowest salaries and shifting costs, and instead, engage in a race to the top. Our future challenge is to build a dignified economy with higher salaries, not lower ones,” he said.

SABC, which opened yesterday and ends today, is a regional thought leadership forum that sees leading economic thinkers and captains of industry from around the world coming together to explore opportunities in Asean.