'Lazy investments' among weak links in Australia-Asean business ties, industry insiders say

"Lazy investing", or investing in safe blue-chip or Western markets, has hindered Australian business expansions in Southeast Asia, with those from big investors particularly "underdone", experts at an economic summit have said.

The lack of exposure and presence in the region was the problem, chair of Aspen Medical Glenn Keys said at the Australia-Asean Business Forum in Sydney on Monday.

About 500 people, including Asean country heads of mission, business chamber representatives and business leaders, attended the forum looking to leverage the deepening relationship between Canberra and the region.

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This year's turnout is the biggest in the forum's 10-year history.

Many of Australia's biggest investors with some of the country's largest sources of capital like superannuation funds had never been to the region, Keys added.

"There was a very major commitment of superannuation funds to Indonesia recently; not one single one of those representatives of the superannuation funds had ever been to Indonesia before," he said.

"I think there's been a lot of - it's a pejorative term - lazy investments. They go to America, they invest in Europe, and yet when you look at the growth figures across the Asean region ... there's certainly a lot more that can be done."

Low levels of direct Australian investments in Southeast Asia are among the weakest links in Australia's engagement in the region. Recent statistics show Australian investments in member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations last year came to about A$28 billion (US$18.7 billion) while investments in New Zealand - a country of 5 million people, or less than 1 per cent of Asean's population - were about A$91 billion.

Aspen's Indonesian medical joint venture Sanusa Medika last week broke ground on the construction of a 200-bed hospital in Depok, West Java, the first of 23 planned hospitals and 650 clinics.

The A$1.3 billion project was inked in 2020 but remains only one of the few mega projects between the two countries.

Aside from capital, Southeast Asian investors told the forum that they would like to see Australians bring more of their technology and innovation know-how to key growth areas in the region such as energy and food security.

AC Energy Corporation , the listed energy platform of the Filipino mega conglomerate Ayala Group, is one of those shopping for investments from superannuation funds but chief executive Eric Francia says it will be a long process.

It takes time to establish a trusting relationship with Australian financiers which can be conservative and risk-averse, he told This Week in Asia at the forum.

"We are not there yet, we are at the beginning," he said, adding that he was having early conversations with Australian banks.

This is an area Australia's special envoy to Southeast Asia Nicholas Moore intends to fix, having spoken to 500 Australian and Southeast Asian investors since he was appointed late last year.

"We hope to see a lot more investment from Australia, both from an institutional setting and from a corporate viewpoint in the region where I think we feel we're a bit underdone ... a lot more can happen if we have the awareness," he said during a plenary discussion at the forum.

These recommendations would be in Canberra's new "Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040", said Moore, who is helming the policy that aims to help boost Australia's economic ties with the region.

Offering a preview into the strategy due to be handed down before the year is over, Moore said the strategy would also outline how aware Australians were about opportunities available in Southeast Asia and include recommendations on increased trade, particularly imports from Southeast Asia, as Australia navigated a "China +1" strategy.

It would also recommend how Canberra could be investing - using its own capital - directly into Southeast Asia.

Jimmy Tanachat Pochana, chairman of Thai sustainable projects group Enserve Holdings, said on top of capital, he was looking forward to more technology sharing and exports from Australia, for example technology that could be useful to climate change projects such as carbon capture.

Other areas of interest included those in energy and food security, two of Southeast Asia's key aspirations, Pochana said.

"It's a perfect fit," he told This Week in Asia at the forum. "We would like to share more knowledge so that together we can increase the credibility of our businesses and harmonise Western-Asian relations."

Christine Pitt, chief executive of Food Futures Company, a food ecosystems expert, said she wanted to see Southeast Asia and Australia build a knowledge and capabilities corridor where knowledge around new technology could be shared.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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