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SINGAPORE: An Asia Competitiveness Institute will be launched on Tuesday at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
It aims to work with businesses and policy makers around the region to strengthen competitiveness.
The Institute will address questions like how countries in ASEAN stay ahead as competition in Asia heats up, and what are some of the industries that specific Asian countries will have a competitive advantage in.
"The early stages of economic development are relatively easy - you have low wage advantage, you get the basics right, you can move ahead but as you climb up the ladder of economic competition, it is going to be harder, and therefore having a more sophisticated understanding of the concepts of economic competitiveness will I think, prove to be an asset for Asian countries," said Prof Kishore Mahbubani, Dean, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
The institute will be working with the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at the Harvard Business School.
Professor Michael Porter, a leading global business expert from Harvard, will chair the ACI's International Advisory Panel and provide guidance to the Institute on its research agenda and strategic development.
The Institute is the first of its kind in the world that focuses on developing countries. As a start, it will work with ASEAN member countries because a lot of research work is currently being done on China and India, but less on ASEAN. The Institute believes that a vibrant Southeast Asian region will also translate into better economic opportunities for Singapore.
"Part of ACI's role is to create a forum whereby both the business and private sector can interact with the government officials, the public sector, to discuss issues, surface solutions, and hopefully come to a consensus of some ideas and policies that will be beneficial to their home countries. There is a lack of that kind of forum in many of our Asian countries today," said Prof Neo Boon Siong, Director, Asia Competitiveness Institute, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
The Institute is already studying the development of competitive economic clusters in Indonesia's Special Economic Zones, and it will undertake 2 to 3 similar projects every year. - CNA /dt/so
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