By Simon Tay and Meixi Gan For The Business Times With the dust settled from the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), efforts in 2022 must turn to the hard work of implementing pledges made by countries and corporations at that meeting. In Singapore, an early January...
By Julia Tijaja and Simon Tay For The Jakarta Post Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the situation is still not fully stabilized, and the coming weeks may prove crucial with Omicron variant increasing uncertainty. Yet ASEAN largely rode out the Delta variant surge in the months...
By Jessica Wa'u and Rohini Nambiar For The Business Times GRAB'S recent US$40 billion initial public offering (IPO) is the culmination of a long and eventful journey riding on Asean's digital growth story. While the public listing of a South-east Asian 'super app' is a marker of...
By Simon Tay, Siti Bazilah and Aaron Choo For The Straits Times Indonesia was ranked the world's eighth-largest greenhouse gas emitter by the World Resources Institute, in a study before the pandemic. Agriculture, forestry and other land use make up around half of its emissions. So when Indonesia...
By Simon Tay and Sarah Loh For SCMP With government finances stretched, there is an increasing recognition that the region can no longer afford economy-crippling restrictions and must return to trajectories that stimulate growth While the region’s pre-pandemic potential remains, reforms are needed to boost efforts...
By Simon Tay and Sarah Loh For Jakarta Post At the Group of 20 Summit, Indonesia as the next chairperson announced “Recover Together, Recover Stronger” as the theme for 2022. President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo stressed that fair and equitable vaccine distribution and stronger health systems are crucial...
By Simon Tay and Satya Ramamurthy For The Straits Times Calls to re-emphasise the importance of Asean have been made as Singapore looks to reopen its economy progressively and re-establish itself as a key regional hub. This would seem timely given positive sentiments about Singapore’s recovery – the 2021...
By Simon Tay and Jessica Wa'u For The Straits Times Festive celebrations are scarce during this pandemic period and can sometimes even seem inappropriate. For Asean, which marks the 54th anniversary of its founding tomorrow, it is a grim birthday blighted by Covid-19 and the crisis...
By Gan Meixi and Fang Eu-Lin For The Business Times The European Union (EU) recently announced a set of policy proposals that aim to give the region a strong start in redirecting the domestic and global economy towards a zero-carbon world. The so-called "Fit for 55" plan aims...
By Simon Tay and Aaron Choo For The Business Times Accusations too often accompany the dry season, especially when the problem of transboundary haze returns across our region. Accusations are traded not only within Indonesia, which usually suffers the worst of the fires and the heaviest pollution,...