150 Attend Asia Inc’s Business Forum

19th November 2010

Bandar Seri Begawan – Over 150 entrepreneurs and business individuals from private and government sectors attended Asia Inc’s local business development forum held at the Empire Hotel and Country Club yesterday morning.

Present as the guest of honour was Pengiran Kerma Raja Pengiran Haji Kamarulzaman, Chairman of Sungai Liang Authority.

Dr Graeheme Henderson, Managing Director of Brunei Shell Petroleum, delivered a presentation on ‘Taking Action to accelerate the growth of Bruneian business’ during the forum opening address.

The event was followed by a presentation on the Brunei Business Environment by guest speaker, Dr Tan Kim Song, Co-Founder of Frontier Investment and Development partners in Singapore.

Dr Song spoke on the MNC and Small-Medium Enterprises from Singapore’s perspective in terms of how Brunei can adopt the same practices in improving in the World Bank’s ease of doing business index.

He went on to quote the statistics of current ASEAN business environment rankings where Brunei is ranked 28th in the Global Competitiveness Index 2010-2011 and 112th in the WB ease of doing business predicted in 2011.

The opening remarks were followed by an open forum discussion on the aspect of ease of business in Brunei led by Fauziah Dato Talib, Managing Partner of IQ Quest and member of APEC Business Advisory Council, and Haji Shazali Dato Sulaiman, Partner of KPMG and Chairman of the Brunei International Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
In the discussion, Haji Shazali emphasised that in order to improve ease of business in Brunei, governments services must be upgraded based on e-government platform for the convenience of processing stages for the SMEs in the country.

“Moving forward, what’s important is Brunei should have coordinating agency to help coordinate all processes to set up business and to ensure the proper transparency in the whole process,” he said.

Haji Shazali also highlighted the function and benefits of the Brunei International Chamber of Commerce and Industry in terms of helping out local companies by providing guidance and easier access on procedures and policies in carrying out businesses.

This year’s Local Business Development forum is themed ‘Tiny Ripples – Huge Wave: Creating Greater Competitive Advantage of Local Business’.

It is an annual programme held by Asia Inc Forum that aims to not only exchange views between established industry leaders but also to stimulate thinking and dialogues on issues, challenges and asses emerging needs of small and medium businesses as well as practical measures that can be taken to improve competitiveness.
— Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin