Thank you very much Mary. I'd like really to express sincere gratitude to the Irish Presidency of the EU for inviting me and actually more than that for convening this meeting and inviting really relevant persons to discuss issues related to the accession but also issues related to the regional cooperation in the part of the world that I very much care for and part of the world I'm coming from. The RCC is a well a young organization it's a fifth year five years old we are in the sixth year of our existence but of course we do care about the links and the legacy left for us from the stability pact for South Eastern Europe and we'll try to perform as good as the impact was performing but I'm in the office as long as the Irish Presidency is in the office as of January this year when I took over as Secretary-General of the RCC and would like to pay respect to the hard work done by colleague of mine predecessor Secretary-General at that time of the RCC Ambassador Hedovic. What I'd like to share with you is what we've done in this period of time and what you should expect from us in the coming months and years. First of all on the political front and this was one of the tasks I've taken with me as of January was to make sure that the RCC as the umbrella regional organization is all inclusive and I'm very happy to report to you that in the RCC board meeting that we held on February 28 we have become the all-inclusive we are the first organization which provided full flash participation to Kosovo as a result of consensus and there I'd like to pay respect to guys colleagues of mine in the government of Serbia who were very constructive in the process and this is one of the results of the Belgrade Pristina dialogue facilitated by Mizashton and I'd like to say that I have high hopes that also in this phase while hoping for news coming from both Belgrade and Pristina that the news will be positive and that they will finally agree on all the days related to the implementation of the agreement that they've reached a few weeks back but this happened even before and it proved that region can cooperate if we invest an effort and if we really try to work out the issues sometimes very difficult and there are many bilateral issues yet to be resolved in the region and we are ready to be supported in this respect but I just wanted to point out this political hurdle which was a hurdle in during last five years in the RCC is behind us and I'm quite happy and proud for that but then what we are trying to do now and we've put we've done and was fully supported on a few weeks back on another board meeting it is that we've tried to reorganize and refocus the organization after five years we've realized it's as it was said if I'm not wrong that I may be corrected in Clinton campaign it's all about economy stupid or as I was reminded while I was in office thank you for mentioning this many constate by Yoshka Fisher at that time whenever he was meeting we was discussing only economy never really enlargement and now ten years after it's all about economy again and this is why I'm saying that what we've done on the few weeks back we have the RCC board adopting the program for the next three years and what is in our work program for the next three years is a clear definition of priorities and as it was just mentioned by Ms Papandopoulou it is the Southeast Europe 2020 strategy which is the core of the engagement of the RCC which will be in the coming years as of January 2014 onwards and I wanted to share with you what it is about we've gave it the name coming from these socialist communist countries we like the mantras sometimes slogans help a lot and this is why we call it a job creating growth and EU integration I'll be blunt though being cautious as well having in mind that Vladimir is here and other economists around who may always correct me but we have seen growth in the years after 2000 in in every part of the region but somehow the growth was also result of the privatization but the people were jobless so the employment did not follow the investments and now in the midst of the crisis we just realized that the low level of employment is a real issue for the countries in the region not only for the countries in the region therefore this strategy is called job creating growth and EU integration and we have three groups of issue that we hope to engage up to 70 percent of our resources human financial in the coming years the first group is related to economic and social development the second one is energy infrastructure and the third one is related to building human capital as we call it having in mind education research innovation we believe that we should invest our effort in the coming years through this SC strategy SC 2020 linking with the EU 2020 in these three groups of issues then remaining resource resources are going to be invested in what we've been doing before and this is just in home affairs related issues rule of law particularly fight against governance economic governance and security cooperation in the region so this is what the RCC is going to be in the coming years but look the concept has been changed during the last five years it was all about peace and stability now we are moving and focusing on development and intensified cooperation in the region this strategy is a result of an agreement reached between the ministers of economy in the region in Tirana last year 2012 and they get it together and they've set a list of regional targets 11 and list of national targets more than 70 and I share with you only few just to understand what it is about what do we want to achieve I mentioned employment employment rate is roughly 70 40 percent unfortunately 40 percent only in the region and we hope having in mind 2010 as a base year to reach by 2020 45 percent of employment then another figure that I'd like to share with you we hope to intensify the intraridional trade among the countries by 230 percent we hope to increase investment by 120 percent we hope to bring to the labor market with the with the perspective of being employed additional 300 000 of highly educated youth and there is a figure that I'd like to share with you it's that we are playing with this figure that the GDP in the region on average is 38 percent of what is the average among the 27 and I'd like you to invite you to pose on this figure what does it show that during the last 10 or more years we have seen development but the gap deepened between the countries in the region and the EU 27 and nobody's happy that the current crisis is getting hard everybody including the EU 27 might help us close this gap but I'm cynical and I'm not happy about that at all but the target we see is by 2020 to get to if possible 46 percent of what is the EU 27 average GDP so even then we may not be at a half and these are reality but this is exactly why we wanted to make clear these are the targets I'm not saying this is the promise of the minister of economy I wish I was able to say this is a promise but no one can promise but at least we have a clear guidance where do we go and this is why we have set this strategy accordingly in addition what we've done in the regional cooperation council as a part of this strategy we've developed a clear horizontal coordination mechanism have in mind that you are aware of that that there is a list of initiatives organizations in the region and I won't list them now and some of them have a specific knowledge and resources and capacity and we've actually tried to put them together and to say who is in the lead when it comes to some of these issues I mentioned trade it should be CEFTA of course if I mentioned energy it should be energy community if I mentioned education it should be education forum initiative for southeast in europe you understand what we have done we really place those who should be the key actors on a front line and then we have defined the role of the regional cooperation council at the organization which is bringing them together and filling the gap we are not the implementing agency we are dealing with the policies with the actors with the governments in the region and of course we have had we had in mind the external actors who are precious when it comes to trade is OECD when it comes to security related issues it might be the OSCE or NATO when it comes to all of these together it's European Commission European Union when it comes to rule of law related issues and human rights related issues is also the council of Europe so we've also provided a rule for them respecting their capacities and last but not least very important the line ministry is in respective governments in the region so there is also beside this besides this horizontal coordination mechanism there is a governance structure and there I'd like to share with you having also in mind those who are going to work with us in the coming months a Lithuanian chairmanship that I'd like to share with them in a way we are shifting our attention because who is now in the RCC board MFA representatives who is going to be in a driving seat when it comes to the AC 20 implementation it is and that would be my wish deputy prime minister responsible for European integration we need them to understand that this is part of their portfolio the implementation of the AC 2020 will be linked with the progress reports and therefore will be part of the success of these very persons who are dealing with the European integration in respective governments so this is a hugely important shift that I wanted to share with you and should provide more of a national stake in the process because we would hope to develop national actions plans so how my country is going to add to this figure of highly educated additional 20,000 from Serbia or additional 15,000 from post and Herzegovina so how do we reach these goals is what we are working now and this is no part of my task so after completing this political issue on being full inclusive after completing this programmatic issue in focusing on this AC 2020 and the future work now we are dealing with the with the governments in the region trying also to make sure that there is a bind for them and that there are the actions plans to follow this strategy so this is what you should expect from us and I'd like to end up by saying something to roll the ball at least on a personal level I'd like to say that while considering the future of WBIF and I think that Greece presidency as of January might have in mind also a particular role for Western Balkans investment framework I think that it would be good to link it with the six prime ministers we need to make sure that the six prime ministers cooperate regionally and do have a stake in what you're going to do with Western Balkans investment framework particularly when it comes to real investments in the region therefore I'd be very much in favor of establishing this kind of a format a regular on a regular basis that six prime ministers are gathering and discussing the regional cooperation and I have in mind those participants of the RCC who are now in a process and who have been addressed in the opening speeches these six I think do have a role to play in the coming years because being realistic we're discussing 2020 plus when it comes to future membership of the EU therefore there is room to fill the close cooperation among these six and I just wanted to share with you at the very end I'd like to invite you to follow closely in the coming days we are getting together to have SCCP South East European Cooperation process ministerial on May 31st in Ohrid and we are going to have a summit on June 1st and we hope to have a good meetings also for the first time a thematic summit which will be discussing issues related to disaster risks preparedness and prevention and this is I think a good that the countries have developed an idea that they should focus on certain issues while bringing foreign ministers or bringing presidents so that I'm very happy to be able to say that Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva is going to join us that we can discuss in depth this field of cooperation here I'd like to stop and I'm very much willing to respond to all the issues you might have as a result of what I was sharing with you on the future activities of the regional cooperation council thank you very much


The human ability to create pleasantness within himself or unpleasantness within himself is quite limitless. If it was a conscious choice, I believe nobody would choose unpleasantness, unfortunately. Too many human beings for too much of their lifetime, they dwell on unpleasantness. It is not because there is something wrong with the world, it is just that what you call as union is a certain dimension of freedom when we said only goal in life is mukti, ultimate liberation. This is not a made-up idea, this is not an idea concocted by someone who felt very bound. This is not an idea of an entangled being. This has not come from deep states of entanglement, this has come simply by looking at the nature of the fundamental of how a human being is built. This moment, whatever the nature of who you are right now, because it's essentially happening out of choice and choice is an outcome of a certain deep-rooted freedom which could have been easily curtailed. No other creature on this planet can choose either to be joyful or miserable. Whatever you subject them to, whatever kind of treatment you subject them to, that is what they become. It is only this one creature who is capable of this that he can choose to be either blissful or create many different states of agony within himself. So the very fundamental of human nature comes from this freedom. It is in exercising this freedom that you can allow your humanity to overflow. When we say being humane or being human, unfortunately most people are referring to acts of kindness. No being human essentially means that you can choose what is your experience right now in your life. And if choice was conscious, obviously it would be one of blissfulness. We have to redefine this social context of understanding humanity as kindness because there are so many human beings who feeling terribly lost, they have invented this that kindness is the biggest thing you could do. No, bliss is the biggest thing you could do because the essential building block of this being has been freedom and the ultimate goal is freedom. We only said ultimate liberation, we never said ultimate God because there is no such thing. The devotees on the planet, those who are lost in devotion generally look like nutcases for others who thought they are smart. But you need to understand a devotee is one who spends maximum amount of his time and life in blissful states. He is the one who is truly exercising this choice. It is just that he might have become socially incompatible because he did not take care of other things. But if he wishes, he can take care of other things too. Maybe he didn't care. This is a choice, this is a very intelligent choice that one has to make. Do you want to have everything or do you want to become everything? If you try to have everything, you will die as a frustrated old woman or man. There's no question about that. If you have any doubt, try one more lifetime. If you have a doubt, try it out. After all, what is the problem? There are many lifetimes. You believe in many lifetimes. So what is the problem? You can try and waste one more. Try to have everything and see.  So this is an intelligent choice that Radhe makes instead of having everything to become everything. This is a possibility. This is a blast state. This is something every human being is capable of. It is actually your longing is to become everything. Your mind has misinterpreted it as trying to have everything. Once you become a slave after logical thought process, now it has misinterpreted this longing to become everything as having everything, as possessing everything. If one does not allow himself to be drenched in the blissfulness of this existence but rather chooses to be in the turmoil of their own psychological existence, if that's a choice one makes and also has the audacity to believe that they are intelligent, what is the point making an investment that doesn't pay?  What is the use? If you fall like this, life becomes one way. If you fall like this, it becomes another way. It is just that like a coin if you throw it, initially it flips up all over the place. When it is flip-flopping, you see in flashes faces of this and that, that is what happens when you are useful because you are yet to fall this way or that way. So you're still flip-flopping, a flash of joy, a flash of bliss, a flash of misery, a flash of everything. But now if you do not become conscious and fall the right way, then you could easily fall into the misery's way. Or you can flip-flop forever and remain a teenager for the rest of your life. Remaining in teens does not mean, does not mean that you are blessed with youthfulness for the rest of your life. It just means that you remain half-grown forever to become a steady source of blissfulness for himself and everything around him. If he doesn't choose to become this, either he will fall into depression or he will continue to remain an immature life for always. And when death comes, still flip-flopping, confused that before life got started, it's over. If you've seen people dying, I would say ninety percent of the people die not in bliss, not even in misery.  There's a look of bewilderedness on their face because when the last moment comes, suddenly they realize they never lived. They're flip-flopped all the time.  It is one kind of established state. Those who are blissful, there is nothing to say about them.  And when the moment of death comes, it is no more a psychological process. It's for real, believe me. It's not just death is real, life is real too. But it takes the absoluteness of death. Death is absolute. Life seems to be relative, but it is not. Life, an experience of life for most people seems to be relative. But death is absolute. It takes absoluteness of death to wake people up. Just a wee bit late. It's good, but just a little bit late.  Really. Just in case, if you die tomorrow, it's better you wake up today, isn't it? Suppose you survive today, at least do it tomorrow, please. Because the essence of your existence is choice. If you do not exercise this choice, then you will never establish yourself as a human being. You will just remain one more creature, which is yet to be, which is yet to form itself.


Oh, you do the American accent, it's been a while since you've done that here. Alright guys, what's up, I'm out here today with Dale, doing some street skating, we're just gonna jump in the car and see what spots we could find and Dale's found this really cool car park spot, there's a chain, there's a bank, you can ollie over the wall, check it out.


So I think the clock is about to strike five past five and we have some attendees with us. Welcome to you all. Thank you for joining our seminar for the Center of Southeast Asian Studies. And it's with great pleasure that I introduce our speaker for this evening. My name is Anna and booze emeritus professor of economics so us and although emeritus still extremely active and playing a big part in the, in the, in the, in the study of Southeast Asian economics, particularly grateful to and for being on the editorial board for the Journal of Southeast Asia Research has one of it. I think that one of our most longstanding members. So, and what can I invite you to share your screen again. Right. Thanks very much Rachel. I'll try and keep the presentation down to about 30 to 40 minutes partly because really this is very much work in progress. I expect some of you who are watching probably will know rather more about what's going on, at least some of the countries and in the region that than I do so. In a way I'm anxious to get feedback comments. Right. Clearly. Yeah, I want to start off by looking at the data that we have on the severity of the covert pandemic and Southeast Asia make a few fairly obvious comparative points, and then move on to look at what we know so far about the impact. Particularly of course on issues relating to living standards poverty employment across the region. I can say with a fair degree of confidence. It's fairly clear after a year of debate and some controversy about the impact of the pandemic on this large and spread out region of now about at least 660 million people, perhaps a few million more than that. It's very clear, first of all, that indeed as we would expect infections and death rates, very very considerably across the region in terms of numbers of cases and numbers of deaths. Indonesia and the Philippines seem now to be the most seriously affected countries now, in a way that's not surprising because of the two largest countries in terms of population. But if you look at the Johns Hopkins figures which seem now to be widely accepted as the most reliable available. And the BBC website has done a fairly good job over the last few months, showing these figures. It's fairly clear that deaths relative to population are still quite low in Indonesia and the Philippines and indeed other countries, certainly compared with Europe, North America, and a number of countries in South America. I can look or speculate about some of the reasons for this, but it is worth bearing in mind, but at least according to public perception. These countries in Southeast Asia aren't or haven't been so seriously affected as many others certainly in the term the developed world but also of course in parts of South America and indeed some parts of sub Saharan Africa. It's worth pointing out that although the figures in Indonesia and the Philippines are low as I said by European standards are still a bit higher than India. Now, in this country we tend to hear a lot more about what's going on in India, certainly than Indonesia and the Philippines. And perhaps that's unfortunate because actually when one looks at the Indian data. The deaths relative to population is still quite low. It doesn't mean to say they're not high, particularly in some regions and of course a lot has been said about particularly Maharashtra and the city of Mumbai. But we've got to look at the subcontinent as a whole, and there the evidence suggests, as I say that deaths relative to population still lower at least than in Indonesia or the Philippines. If one looks at the rankings now Indonesia seems to be about number 17 in terms of numbers of deaths. Again, these are the Johns Hopkins figures, but of course so much lower when deaths are standardized for population. However, this is worrying the numbers of deaths are continuing to grow as indeed they are in the Philippines. And of course as many of you will know, a couple of weeks ago the Philippines was put on the so called red list for the UK or at least for England. Which means people coming back from the Philippines now have to quarantine quarantine and designated hotels. And that may well happen for Indonesia. In Indonesia the Philippines Malaysia and Myanmar have all reported well over 100,000 deaths, but in other parts of the region, the numbers of reported cases are much lower. And mortality is still fairly low, certainly by global standards. In fact, in Vietnam. Sorry, just let me go back for a minute. Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Brunei and Singapore, they've all reported fewer than 100 deaths, although Thailand the numbers have been edging up a bit, particularly over the last week. I think they've got to 100. Now, of course, all these figures have to be queried is the underreporting of both cases and deaths. My own view is that's probably quite likely. And particularly in those countries or regions within countries where vital registration, particularly outside the largest cities is fairly weak testing capacity is limited. And governments might not so might not wish to publish accurate figures, even if they have them and of course, many do not. In addition, we have to bear in mind that in those countries or again regions within countries where access to modern medical facilities, hospitals and well equipped clinics is still quite limited. And it's highly likely that people are dying at home, and the deaths certainly not registered in the COVID statistics. We have to bear all this in mind, I know, at least in Indonesia, there's some controversy now about data, but I think it's highly likely this is also the case in other parts of the region as well, as well. I've also been pointed out that there are in fact other reasons why COVID deaths appeared to have been rather lower, not just in Southeast Asia but also other parts of Asia and indeed parts of sub Saharan Africa, compared with Europe and North and South America. The reason that a number of people have pointed to and my own view is it's fairly important one is that demographic structure is simply different and when we look at the available demographic data on Southeast Asia we see immediately a much higher proportion of the population is under 50. Now if there's one thing I think we have learned over the last year, this virus seems to affect older people, particularly over the age of 60, much more seriously. In fact, many young people, even if they're infected by the virus, they don't seem to show many symptoms, and they don't seem to be seriously ill, certainly not enough to need hospital care. We need to bear in mind is by and large, of course, the elderly are mainly looked after at home. Care homes are really still pretty much unknown in many parts of Southeast Asia, indeed many parts of the Asian region as a whole. And as we know, of course, in Europe certainly during the so called first wave, a very high proportion of the deaths took place among frail elderly people in care homes. Another point that's quite often made, particularly about tropical or subtropical countries is the warmer climate does lead to a more open air lifestyle, people aren't closeted in closed houses to the same extent. That's true streets, of course, and indeed very often houses are crowded, but it's argued will this better ventilation air circulates. And as we know again, from what we've learned in Europe over the last year, infection rates do tend to be higher, when large numbers of people are closer together in those spaces. Some people have pointed out will obesity may be a less serious problem, particularly among older folk. And we know, of course, obesity is associated with higher death rates certainly in Europe. On the other hand, of course, many men smoke. Many more women smoke and in fact admit to in the statistics and smoking and associated lung problems are certainly correlated with with higher deaths in Europe. Nice aspect elsewhere. I've argued that the government policy responses in Southeast Asia, while limited have been reasonably effective at least in enforcing lockdowns and restricting national international travel. As a point out in the moment, this has had pretty serious impacts on several economies in the region, particularly Malaysia and Thailand, lesser extent, Indonesia and the Philippines to foreign tourists, numbers have fallen. And of course, that's had a very serious impact on the economies of those countries. This is a point I'll come back to but progress with this vaccination appears to have been limited, particularly in the larger countries come back again to the problems in Indonesia, Thailand, and perhaps some of the other countries in the region. Now, another point that's been made. And some of you listening might have some thoughts on this. But I know it has been argued that variants of the COVID-19 virus have in fact been circulating in some parts of Asia, particularly Southern China and the countries in mainland Southeast Asia that border on Southern China. Now, for some years, possibly even decades and this might have generated some herd immunity among populations which in turn has led to lower infection rates in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, even Thailand. Perhaps Myanmar as well. This might also explain what appeared to be rather low death rates in China itself and also Taiwan Korea. All this is fairly speculative and clearly a lot more research is needed. Be helpful if the Chinese were a little more forthcoming about how exactly the virus spread from Southern China, Central China, of course, particularly the city of Wuhan. And I think one also has to bear in mind and I know quite a few doctors have made this point over the last year. There's still an awful lot about the way the human immune system works by region by ethnic group by age group. We still don't understand. Okay, well, what's been the economic impact. Now of course the columnist and first and foremost to look at GDP data. There's a position where we've got reasonably good data for most of the countries in the region on the impact of the virus and the pandemic, and the associated lockdowns and so on, on GDP. And the first point, and the most important point is to say, seems to be a very considerable variation across the countries in the region. And it's now widely read the worst affected country, at least in terms of GDP decline has been the Philippines decline of almost 10%, which is pretty much what happened in this country in the UK, and some of the badly affected countries in Europe such as Spain, for example, and a few others. So why was the Philippines so badly affected but I'll come back to that in a moment, there's been some speculation. But in my view, I find the Philippine data rather puzzling. Thailand also has experienced the fairly severe contraction but over 6%, Malaysia a little under 6% Singapore, roughly the same. So where to begin with people were fairly pessimistic about this time last year was there was some fairly grim predictions being made about the likely decline in GDP I think based, probably now quite fallacious on the experience of Indonesia during the so called Asian crisis in 9899. In fact, the data seem to suggest contraction GDP was only of the order of about 2% much the same as Cambodia. And then we've got a group of countries led by Vietnam where, in fact, GDP has continued to expand admittedly at a lower rate certainly in the case of Vietnam and Myanmar. It had been up until 2020, but Vietnam you can see the rate of growth of GDP now is put at about 3%, and Myanmar a little under 2%. Brunei, well the government is reporting a slight expansion on the 1%. I haven't really been able to get figures yet for us. Somebody may be able to help me though. But I think it's likely that the last probably had a contraction, same order of magnitude Cambodia. Okay, well why these differences. And I think at the moment certainly most people certainly I've spoken to or interacted with agree that it's really quite difficult to explain why there has been such a big difference at least in terms of GDP contraction. So in the Philippines it's worth pointing out much greater than the Asian crisis. Those of you whose memory stretch back to the late 1990s will remember that in several countries in the region, GDP declined by a considerably greater amount. The case of Indonesia was almost a 13% decline in 1998 much worse than what appears to have occurred in 2020. The Philippines and here's the interesting contrast. The Philippines was actually not that badly affected by the Asian crisis. But certainly now most Philippine economists are pointing out that the contraction in 2020 was probably the worst that the Philippine economy has experienced since the bad days and the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. And this isn't why this has happened. I think is the contraction and what national income economists like to call net primary income from abroad, which, at least according to preliminary estimates I've seen contracted by over 50%. Now that is largely not entirely but largely due to the foreign remittances. And as many of you know, who've been studying the Philippines remittances have it recently is mainly remittances from Filipinos working abroad. That's a very important role in the economy. Now the Philippines did actually have reasonably robust growth in national income over the decade up until 2019. Some people are sorry let me go back from some people are projecting a recovery quite a rapid recovery in the Philippines in this year 2021. At the moment I must say I'm a bit cautious because I still don't fully understand the reasons for this very serious growth collapse last year. Until we know a bit more about those reasons I think it's difficult to make projections. I think it's highly likely there will be a return to growth. Very difficult at the moment at least my view to predict. Now Vietnam as we all know certainly those of us that have been looking at the region over the last few years will know that Vietnam has become something of the regional superstar in terms of rapid growth. The 3% predicted for all 3% which has been estimated for last year for 2020 was a considerable drop over the rates of growth they've been achieving for much of the last decade indeed really for longer. 7-8 even 9% per animal some years. Vietnam is a bit like more like China I think than the other countries in the region in that there are now quite bullish predictions for a return to growth this year. And it's worth bearing in mind Vietnam's trade links with the other ASEAN countries have until recently being relatively limited. And I think many people are saying well, Vietnam's in some ways a very globalized economy far more of course in this case, 20 years ago. So it will benefit from a recovery in the US, the USA and other OECD economies, as well as in China itself. When we turn to look at the contractions in Thailand Malaysia Singapore. Well, as I said, the sharp decline in tourism and transport services has been one reason. And I think, certainly in the case of Thailand Malaysia, a serious reason. In addition, all these countries are plugged into global production networks, both in manufacturing. And also, in some service con service sectors. They've been hit obviously by declining demand for a range of manufacturers in 2020. Singapore and Malaysia in particular projecting reasonably high growth rates for this year. One, they clearly feel that has fairly open economies or very open economies in those two cases. The recovery will depend on a return to growth in the global economy and the most recent estimates by the IMF have been reasonably optimistic here. And of course, both USA and China will play an important role in pushing global growth this year and probably for two or three years to come at least. When we turn to Thailand, the projections are less optimistic. Now it's worth bearing in mind that actually Thailand hasn't been doing terribly well in terms of GDP growth for the last decade actually really for the last two decades. It was badly hit by the Asian crisis and never really managed to get back to the sort of stellar growth levels that were achieved in the 1980s, 1990s. Most of the predictions I've seen for Thailand are of the order 2.5 to 3.5% not very dramatic. In the case of Indonesia as I said the contraction turned out to be rather less than some people had feared. Now this again may reflect the fact Indonesia is somewhat less open economy than certainly Thailand Malaysia or Singapore. So the agricultural mineral sectors still account for about 20% of total GDP, and they've been fairly resilient. And agricultural output in fact has continued to grow through 2020, at least partly because of the fairly strong performance of some agricultural exports, or more of course, in particular. Some people think the stimulus package the Indonesian government implemented last year has played a role, although others think it was a fairly small package and probably didn't have a very traumatic effect. Growth projections for Indonesia of the 2021 very a report came out on Indonesia from the OECD a few weeks ago which suggests that growth might be of the order of 4%. Some people and I've seen other estimates were a little bit lower. Okay, well let's turn to issues relating to the impact on poverty. This is serious now again those of you with memories that go back to the late 1990s. So called Asian crisis will remember there was a very serious impact on poverty levels although recovery tend to be faster even in the worst affected economies. And some people have predicted. I think it's almost inevitable. We look at the extent of the GDP declines have taken place in 2020 there's going to be some impact on household incomes and therefore on poverty levels. Let's start with the Philippines I said the worst affected country in terms of GDP decline. The Philippines does what I call the FIS family income expenditure surveys every three years. These are considered to be reasonably good household surveys, although some people criticizing for underestimating household incomes and expenditures, particularly in the richer groups. However good or bad they are a complete FIS is not going to be available until this year. So what we have at the moment is quite a lot of speculation on the part of various NGOs about what they think might have happened to poverty and living standards. Once these press stories for example that the numbers of families going hungry has doubled, certainly between September 2019 and May 2020. A well known NGO that does public opinion polling, social weather station has reported. In fact, in November 2020, only about 16% of families in the country rated those as non poor. Does that mean the other 84% are poor? Possibly not. You know these self rating exercises are criticized by some economists, but certainly so far the evidence does suggest that a decline in GDP is round about 10% in London will have a serious impact on poverty and living standards across much of the country. The Thai figures are also quite interesting. Thailand has been producing its own poverty figures in recent years based on household income and expenditure surveys that are carried out now on an annual basis. Some figures I've seen they come from the World Bank but I think they're just repeating figures from the National Statistical Office in Bangkok. Just numbers of poor increased from 3.7 million to about 5.2 million between 2019 and 2020. That's a fairly considerable increase about 40%. Which is worrying and I'm sure it must be worrying the Thai government, given the other political and social problems that Thailand is facing at the moment. I just need to be born in mind that Thai governments tended in recent years to use a fairly high poverty line. Certainly higher than the Indonesian one, for example. And it's possible that if one used a lower poverty line, for example, closer to the one the World Bank, the so-called dollar 90 that the World Bank has been using in recent years. That doesn't poverty will certainly be lower, but they also might have increased less rapid. Still, I find the Thai figures moderately worrying and as I said, they must be leading to some concern in Thailand, given all the other problems, political and social and constitutional that the Thai governments facing at the moment. Okay, well, turning to Indonesia, Statistics Indonesia, the National Statistical Agency, published in January, some numbers which showed that numbers below the official poverty line increased from a little under 25 million in September 2019 to about 27.5 million in September 2020. This didn't necessarily translate into a very large increase in the poverty ratio and the proportion of the population. We must bear in mind Indonesia's got a very large population, at least 270 million. The absolute increase is, I think, worrying and certainly enough to present a challenge to the government. Since the so-called Asian crisis of late 1990s, Indonesia has been pushing forward with a number of so-called social safety net programs programs that are really intended to try and help the poorer segments of the population. To boost their incomes and certainly boost school attendance, attendance at health centers and so on. The government certainly has announced an increase in some of these programs. I think one of the interesting things about the Indonesian figures is that it seems that a lot of the increase in the numbers of poor have actually taken place in urban areas. In other words, that's where unemployment has been rising, apparently rising quite rapidly, a number of people, probably young people, often migrants from rural areas and losing whatever jobs they had. And it's been argued, well, many of them will just go home again and they will tend to depress living standards in rural areas, depress wages perhaps, certainly become more of a burden on their families. And that may well happen. Some people are arguing, well, poverty will spring back, will decline again in 2021. But I think if the problem is being pushed slowly from urban to rural areas, perhaps this may not happen. In turn, is it declining in poverty rates in urban areas and a rise in rural areas. Turning back to Thailand, I know some projections have been made that at least five million will still be below the poverty line this year in 2021, which I think is worrying. And I said earlier, I'm sure this is worrying the Thai government, given any other problems it's having to deal with moment. Okay, well, let's make some fairly tentative conclusions. The first. And this is an important one is that the pandemic has exposed weaknesses in social services, particularly public health infrastructure. Now, some of these weaknesses were already fairly well known to international agencies and indeed experts in public health in the region. But perhaps unfortunately, they didn't necessarily get as much attention from domestic policy makers as they should. Now, government spending on public health varies across the region. Broadly speaking, facilities tend to be better in urban areas, and certainly most skilled professionals doctors nurses, and so on, have concentrated in urban areas seems to be fairly good evidence in many parts of the region. The private facilities have been expanding, particularly to meet increased demand from the urban middle classes, because quite simply many people tend to feel that public facilities of a rather poor quality. However, private care of course tends to be more expensive. Some people get it as part of their remediation package. It's true of both public and people and public employment but also in the private sector. But many simply have to pay out of their incomes for whatever private care they can afford. The factor that's had certain amount of attention in recent years is the growth and cross border provision of medical services. Many Indonesians for example, middle class Indonesians are going to Malaysia for treatments rather than use local facilities. Again, this reflects the fact that they don't think the local facilities are very good. Perhaps ironically, in at least some cases, treatments available in Malaysia cost less than in a private facility in Indonesia. Attitudes to vaccination also vary. They vary a lot across regions, across social classes, across religious groups. Come back and look at the vaccination issue, a little bit more detail in the moment. But so far, very few countries have embarked on one more term, mass vaccination campaigns. I'm not so sure about Singapore, although I suspect now certainly the more vulnerable groups are being vaccinated and that may be the case in Malaysia. The Indonesian government has claimed that it wishes to vaccinate all adults. That's about 180 billion people, probably more. But it's of course having difficulty, particularly in getting enough vaccines. It's also argued that delivery, even if they can get the vaccines, it's not going to be that easy, particularly outside the largest cities to vaccinate people given the lack of facilities, lack of trade, staff and so on. The government Indonesia seems to be dependent very much, very much on China for its vaccines that may change. But certainly Indonesia and the Philippines have not been able to source many vaccines from Western countries or indeed from India. One other thing I'd like to draw attention to, you can call it the reversal of fortune if you like. As I said earlier, Vietnam seems to have emerged as the star performer growth rates were high, certainly in the decade, up until 2019. And Vietnam seems to have coped very well as far as dealing with COVID cases and COVID deaths. Now that may partly reflect the fact that, as I said earlier, the population may have more natural immunity. What is happening, I think this is really very interesting. So just let me go back for a moment. What is happening is that GDP per capita now in Vietnam. To use the World Bank IMF figures corrected for purchasing power parity seems now to be higher than in the Philippines. In fact, some of the figures I've seen suggest higher by at least $2,000. Now, for those of us who remember the Vietnam in the early 1990s, what was still a low income country. That's really a remarkable achievement. But of course, it also throws light on the relatively poor performance. Not just of the Philippine economy, but some of the others in the region as well. As I said, early Indonesia's performed slightly better than might have been expected. Certainly given the problems and they are serious problems in my view with the provision of health services. However, I do think it's likely that excess deaths in the Philippines when reliable data becomes available will be much higher than the official data show. Indeed, we might not really know the full figure of the full picture for Indonesia at least until we get the intersensal survey of 2025. That also be the case that we won't get accurate data for other countries in the region, including Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar until more complete population data are available. My suspicion is that excess deaths in all these countries are higher than the official figures show. As far as the Philippines is concerned, I think the serious collapse this year in GDP has exposed weaknesses in its economic strategy. Now the government at the moment seems to be counting on a rapid recovery this year. We'll just have to wait and see. There's another set of issues of course to do with the role of China and the whole question of the relationship between us in China is now getting quite a lot of attention. I think on the whole, as a result of the pandemic, China's role in the region may well be enhanced, not just as a trading partner, but also as a sort of reliable friend need. And I think this is particularly the case with supplying vaccines, possibly other medical aid as well. I'd like to finish if I might just by drawing attention to some figures which have been published. Those of you with an interest in health issues may know these these data. They've been put out now, they're called global health metrics, they've been put out now for some years by a group based at the University of Washington, Seattle, being in Seattle of course they get a lot of assistance I think from the Gates Foundation. But this is a really very ambitious attempt to put together health metrics for a very large number of countries also almost 200 across, not just the developed world but also the developing world including Sub-Saharan Africa. And one measure they've been estimating is often referred to as Hale, that just refers to health adjusted life expectancies. Now, of course, some of you will know, if we look at the some of the composite indicators of development that have been used for for example the Human Development Index with the United Nations has been using now for many years. Life expectancy at birth is one component of the HDI, but these people have gone rather further what they're trying to do is adjust life expectancy for problems and particularly problems which many countries are now facing which is a poor quality of life of older folk. In addition, they've tried to estimate the impact for example in the United States of problems like opioid addiction and some of the associated health problems related to that. So in other words, they're estimating life expectancies but adjusting them for these health problems. Well, what do we see? Well, actually we see and they've put out the data now for a number of years, but I've given the figures here for 1919, 2016. Now over this 26 years of course this is before the pandemic hit and there's a fair amount of discussion about what impact the pandemic will have on life expectancies across the world, but prior to the pandemic, we can see it was a fairly impressive increase at the global level in life expectancies adjusted for health and outcomes. Singapore, perhaps not surprisingly, even if it's by far the richest country in the region, has the best outcomes. In fact, I think Singapore has among the best outcomes for any country in the world. Women in Singapore now can expect to live for over 80 years but it's estimated that at least 75 of those 80 years will be fairly healthy. In fact, very healthy probably people will not be affected by the familiar problems of the very old dementia Parkinson's and other problems. In fact, Singapore comes out top. Also Brunei, another fairly well to do countries which has invested a fair amount in health. Malaysia. Thailand actually looks surprisingly good and I think this is an aspect of Thai economic progress over the last 20 years or so that perhaps hasn't hasn't had as much attention as it should have done. Of course, Texan introduced the so called 30 bar healthcare policy way back I think in 2001 when he first achieved offers was extremely popular. Sorry, I want to get back again. Can I go back. Yeah. Yeah, it was extremely popular and the low tax and was deposed in 26 and his successes, including sister were of course pushed out in 2014. I think successive government since then have invested more in health care. And certainly it's now showing up in these health adjusted life expectancy figures. Thai women are can expect to live 70 years and that 70 years of healthy life, obviously lower than Singapore, but surprisingly slightly higher than Malaysia or Bruno, and certainly a lot higher than most of the other countries. Vietnam is also done well and again, this I think is now quite widely recognized health policies in Vietnam. I've had a lot of attention. Although perhaps not quite as much attention as they should have had because even if one goes back to the 1990s, Vietnam was doing surprisingly well in terms of life expectancy. Quite a lot of discussion of why this was and don't forget 1990 Vietnam was still a very poor country I mean much poorer than Thailand poorer than Indonesia or Philippines. And it seems to have done relatively well on some of these global health metrics. People have argued well in 1975, when of course Vietnam was reunified after extremely bitter and prolonged civil war against both the French and then the Americans. The government was faced with really very serious public health problems, many people of course Indian. Many families had lost family members. And so a real effort was made to provide, not just healthcare but also other social services, particularly in rural areas. So as the Vietnam experience deserves some further study, not least in countries like Indonesia, where frankly, health metrics are not really that good when one bears in mind Indonesia is now what the World Bank likes to call an upper middle income country. And certainly Vietnam looks good compared with the Philippines. So with Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia. Now, the reasons for low life expectancy, particularly back in the 1990s in Cambodia and Laos, of course, again with the result of the appalling problems those countries went through in the 1970s and 1980s. The beyond my figures are also not terribly good, although they've improved somewhat. All these data, if you're interested, can be found in an article in the Lancet, well known British Medical Journal. And I think if you haven't interested in health issues, certainly anywhere in the developing world but I think particularly in Southeast Asia they are always spending a bit of time looking at as I said this was a big project that the Gates Foundation, funded and indeed I think this contingent and it does show up. There are important issues related to health. Particularly the fairly obvious fact that some countries, even in the case of Vietnam relatively low to medium income, seem to have done a lot better than others. And certainly I think worth bearing all that as we come out of the pandemic and look at health policies in the future. Okay, I'll leave it there. Sorry, how long have I gone on for too long, haven't I? But please, as I said, very much welcome for the comments, particularly from those of you that probably know more about least some of these countries than I do. Thank you very much and that's fantastic and really interesting lots of great data there. I'm looking in the Q&A box for questions and can't see anything yet. Can I click the box? I think you can, it's at the bottom. Yes sir, it's bottom there isn't it? No open questions yet. And I can see that my camera is slightly freezing as well, going to turn it off actually to make it seem less weird. No, it's okay. That nice feel is a local. Yes, topical I think. I mean it's quite a big task isn't it to take on a survey of economic development across the whole region under the COVID and the influence of COVID and must, must require you to be able to sort of take data from several different sources in order to be able to make those comparisons from one country to the next. Yeah, I should point out I think I said earlier. This has been very much a sort of lockdown exercise, which means I'm very dependent on what I can get on the internet. Fortunately, most of the country, not all but most of the countries in the region have fairly good statistical data available either directly from national statistical agencies. I have websites now and certainly Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore as one would expect. Other countries are a bit more problematic. And sometimes one does depend on World Bank and other secondary sources, usually reasonably reliable. But in some cases, you know, one really is struggling a bit to find data. As I said, I'm still not completely sure what's going on in Laos. Indeed, Laos has never been an easy country to get data for. It doesn't mean it's rather difficult to predict what's going to happen now. It's still, of course, a relatively small country, but you live in Laos, or indeed if you live in neighboring countries, this is something else I sort of was going to touch on. The whole question of what impact this is going to have on cross border migration. And of course, this worries Thailand, I know, because of the possibility that there'll be an influx of people coming, not just from Myanmar, but also of course from Laos, possibly Cambodia as well. Actually, I think if I was sitting in Bangkok at the moment, I really would be quite worried about what's going on, not just in the neighbors, but even in the domestic economy. Yes. So we have a question from Nicky Ariff. Now I'll read to you and fascinating. I have a question about anti Asian sentiment in the USA. How do you think this will impact on Southeast Asia's opinion slash worldview of the Western world who fed so much worse in this pandemic. Yeah, I mean that's a difficult question. I'm not sure I'm qualified to answer it.  I'm not sure they really add up to anything very important. Probably Americans indeed I think this is true of many Europeans don't necessarily distinguish between China on the one hand country such as career in Japan and Southeast Asia. I think in this part of the world partly because of course colonial experience people are little more informed about what's going on. My own view is that on the whole, to the extent people in Europe know much about Indonesia or the Philippines or indeed Vietnam. They may know a bit more about Thailand Malaysia because they go there for holidays. But this is still a bit of an area of darkness. I'm not sure there's much anti Asian sentiment that is focused on people from these regions. It's much more just I think complete ignorance. And as I say, I am interested looking you know there's a lot of coverage certainly in this country on India now, you know given historic links. Plus the fact a lot of people with Indian origin now live in Britain. It's to be expected that a lot of attention will be given to India. But I don't think many people would realize that if you know one does look at deaths standardized for population. The situation in India is certainly no worse than Indonesia or the Philippines and may in fact be a bit better. Now I don't think that's going to translate into hordes of people trying to cross borders. There's very little evidence that that's happening at all certainly in Indonesia or the Philippines. As I say I think time and has got more to worry about partly because of the instability in Myanmar or so to some extent Cambodia. And of course the coup in Myanmar has just aggravated these problems. But I wouldn't worry too much about anti Asian feeling in America. I think Biden actually to be fair has if you know just looking at the bio data from some of his key people now these are people that really do understand Asia and understand the problems and several cases have had a lot of experience in the region. So I think they can be trusted to make sensible decisions. But in the meantime, of course, you know, let's face it, American policies going to be very much focused on problems in America. European policies going to be very much focused on problems in the various European countries. I don't think anybody at the moment is really too worried about what's going on in Southeast Asia. Perhaps I'm wrong here but that's the impression I get. Okay, you can follow up with another question from Sophie's Vic. Are there specific industries that are especially affected by COVID and will they recover by developing differently than before the pandemic. Has the pandemic created moment of rethinking the current economic trajectory. Very important questions a difficult one to answer. And as I said the certainly tourism if you think of tourism has been one industry although in many ways one has to break it down into its component parts obviously hotels and restaurants what's actually termed the hospitality industry. This has been very badly hit I think, across the whole region, because foreigners simply are not coming. And I think local tourism has largely stopped not in time, but very large I mean I think again a bit like in this country and other parts of Europe, people are just a bit scared to leave home. It's death's mount. I think that fear will will increase. So you know even if Javanese would like to go to Bali for a holiday I suspect are thinking twice about it. And of course foreign I'm told that foreign tourism Bali now has more or less ground to a whole. And I think you'll know the tie story but I'm told this is true in Thailand, Malaysia. It's the region including of course Cambodia. I don't know how many people are going to court now but I suspect it's a tiny proportion of the numbers say two years ago, and that'll hit Cambodia quite bad. Other industries are likely to be hurt.  China will start growing again. The American economy, partly as a result of the Biden policies will bounce back there seems to be the message that the IMF is giving at the moment. If one looks at say garments textiles these are footwear these are important industries in Vietnam Cambodia. They export largely not entirely but largely to Western Europe and North America. And now bounce back as demand bounces back and I think that's probably true. But I think other industries probably are going to be more seriously affected in the case of the Philippines I know a lot of attention was given to the growth of call centers. A lot of middle class Filipinos are now employed basically answering phone calls from the United States and Canada. That should also bounce back as the economies in these countries recover. But they may have to be summary thinking. And I think that again simply because of the severity of the decline of the Philippines, I think is going to have to be summary thinking of the growth strategy there. The Philippines now is facing a bit of a crisis. Having done reasonably well for the last two decades. And how they will respond. I simply don't know. I'm not, you know, even Vietnam, which seems to have done pretty well. I'm told that there is now summary thinking going on certainly among within the party about whether a growth strategy that depends so much on the global economy. Really make sense. So it'd be interesting to see I wouldn't like to make predictions. But I think there is going to be some rethink. And one does have to bear in mind, you know, the various governments and South East Asia are very different. I mean Vietnam is essentially a fairly strong one party state, communist party dominant. Singapore, of course, as far as we know the PAP is still dominant. Other countries you've got a much messier Indonesia. Jacoby who's cope reasonably well, I think so far with the crisis, although he certainly has some critics, but you know he stands down and another what three years. And who's going to succeed him is far from clear. Who's going to succeed deterrent. So far from the Philippines. Malaysia is still a fairly unstable country, although I think on the whole Malaysia scope reasonably well with pandemic. The underlying political situation is unstable as indeed it is entirely. So we are looking at a fair amount of instability across the region. And that's certainly going to affect thinking on economic policy. Okay, thank you very much. I'll move on to the next question from Ariel Lopez. Greetings from the Philippines. Thanks for the lecture, Professor Booth. I've been working from home since March 2020. I'm not sure if decline in remittance is a major factor in GDP decline. I think it's it's really the hard and extended lockdowns. I'm also doubtful about the impact of China's vaccine diplomacy, especially if done with their ongoing South China Sea expansion. I guess it's a comment rather than a question. And thank you. You may well be right about remittances. As I said, this is a response I've had from people here and other parts of Europe. Oh, well, you know, the Philippines has become so dependent on remittances, although that in itself, I know is a statement that not all would agree with. I'm not still not completely sure for remittances have fallen as rapidly as the GDP figure figures might show. There may be other reasons as well, including inward investment flows. I don't see any evidence that somebody told me quite recently there are well over 30,000 Filipinos working here in the NHS. Now, I don't think many of them are packing up and going home. They're still earning, they'll be sending money home as they always do. Some of the Filipinos working in other parts of Southeast Asia, Singapore, Malaysia, and indeed in other parts of the world, including the United States. So there you may well be right, the remittances story may not be quite as important as some people at the moment seem to think. I'd like to get more data of being sort of struggling a bit with the website, the Philippine Statistical Agency is actually very good website, quite easy to navigate. But as yet they haven't really put up much detailed data on GDP for 2020 as more data become available. It'll give us I think a clearer picture of what's going on. The point about South China Sea also very well taken. I know Costa Terte is tended to be rather pro-China. Although people tell me he's now in very poor health. Some people think he may not even survive till the end of his term and who will succeed him as far as I can see is still very much an open question. Imagine why Filipinos are very, the Philippines and Vietnam is really I think now in the front line as far as the South China Sea is concerned. These two countries are the most affected. How they will cope, I don't know. I mean it's clearly an enormously important element in the whole issue of China's Southeast Asia relations. And it's really very difficult. I mean the pandemic of anything's made everything more difficult to predict. As far as vaccines are concerned, I'm told that in Indonesia at the moment almost all the available vaccines are coming from China. They were promised some by AstraZeneca and AstraZeneca in India. And they haven't shown up. And I think given, I mean we're facing now a worldwide shortage of vaccines. And I'm afraid countries like the Philippines and Indonesia fairly low the pecking order, fairly low down the pecking order. So they'll just have to make do with whatever's available. It's a difficult situation for them to be in, but there we are. That's reality. Yeah, harsh reality indeed. I don't know, you might know, Rachel, a little bit about Thailand. What hasn't heard yet about a mass vaccination program in Thailand? No. Government's not selling very much, is it? No, I've been asking friends what they've been offered. And I think, again, people have mostly been offered Sinovac. Yeah. But people I've spoken to also kind of very scared by stories about AstraZeneca. I also hear that some of the rollout has been, you know, for private citizens only and not widely available for... One hears this across the region. There's now a flourishing private market. And you get it. And if you can pay for it, you get it. And if you can't, well, you don't. I think probably that's pretty... I don't see how this can be avoided, right? Yes. I mean, that would fit in with most models of healthcare. I think Thailand and probably in the rest of Southeast Asia as well. Yeah. I have a comment from Chris Joy. A comment more than a question concerning pre-existing immunity to COVID-19, especially in southern China and mainland Southeast Asia. At least from anecdotal evidence, having spent five or six winters in northern Vietnam, respiratory issues with very COVID-like symptoms are common and always fill hospitals. It seems likely that COVID-like pathogens do circulate there with some frequency. Well, thanks for that comment. It's very interesting. You know, I've heard one or two other people say much the same thing people with experience in Vietnam. Even Myanmar. Myanmar is a bit of a puzzle because all the evidence suggests putting aside the most recent developments, all the evidence suggests that the healthcare infrastructure was and continues to be fairly primitive, particularly outside the biggest cities. And yet deaths do seem to be surprisingly low. And that does suggest there must be some degree of immunity in the population. And the Vietnam story, yes, I have heard that and people say that, you know, some people say, well, these various COVID-like viruses have been around some many years. It's interesting, and as I said earlier, there's an awful lot about the way human immune systems work and particularly work among different ethnic groups that we still don't fully understand. But I think the very low death rates, certainly in Myanmar, even Vietnam, Vietnam certainly does have, as I said earlier, a much better public health infrastructure. I think either Cambodia or Myanmar. But even there, they seem to have coped surprisingly well, and that does suggest some degree of immunity. Or, you know, the public health infrastructure is better used to dealing with respiratory problems. I know there was a lot of concern in Indonesia when all this broke a year ago, and people pointed to the so-called puskas masks, the community health clinics, that the government has been building now for many years. There's supposed to be one in every sub-district, Kichomotan. But they're very poorly equipped. In fact, recently I read that about 20% don't even have fridges. So how are they going to store vaccines? And plus the fact that, you know, there aren't necessarily the skilled health personnel available just to inject people. And I think what will happen in Indonesia is there'll be mass programs in a few big cities, but they won't necessarily extend to rural areas or even smaller towns, particularly outside Java. Okay, so that leads us on nicely to the next question which is about Indonesia from Nuraki Aziz. In relation to Indonesia, how big is the influence of Islam in addressing COVID there? Do you see the present government's more business-like policies as having a negative impact? Again, very interesting. I'm not sure I'm the right person to ask about. I will make a few points if I can. There is some evidence. I know even prior to the pandemic, certainly public health officials in Indonesia were very worried about vaccinations. For example, vaccinations of babies and young children against the measles and mumps and polio. The government policy, again, is to get children under the age of 24 months fully vaccinated. Some parts of the country that policy is working very well, Bali, for example. I think something like 98%, according to the government figures, 98% of children or babies under the age of 24 months were being vaccinated. And the parents needed very little persuasion to bring them to clinics. But if one looks at some of the more Islamic areas, actually, of course, stands out, there seems to be much more resistance to vaccination.  And these are certainly not official policies on the part of, for example, the Islamic Council in Indonesia. But some key eye in some areas are putting out messages across social media.  What's the word one would use animal plasma. It's something like that, which could come from pigs. It's rubbish. The government, of course, has made it clear this is rubbish, but there's always going to be in particularly in the more, you know, the more Islamic areas is always going to be a certain proportion of the population that believes this. You say jacoa is more business like. And jacoa famously is now trying to push through these reforms, particularly to the labor legislation which some people think is driven by the quote, you know, orthodox or economic policies prescribed by the World Bank, etc, etc. But I think jacoa and many other economists who aren't necessarily fully paid up. Neoclassical economists tend to agree that labor market policies have not always been very helpful and need some certain some modification, particularly, of course, the minimum wage policies and the policies regarding the payments for termination of employment, which are very large and having I think a negative effect on employment. But jacoa is pushing ahead with us. But I don't think that's necessarily alienating him in terms of the business community more broadly. And of course, kind of remember these days and Indonesia's vast majority of people and private business and muslims are no longer. It wouldn't be quite wrong to say that you know they were Chinese or Christians are not. And I think jacoa has a lot of support for many people within the broader Islamic community. But there certainly are people who, for one reason or another, want to cause problems. And as I said, we'll do so via social media spreading all sorts of rumors. It's really very difficult for the government and well any government now anywhere in the world to deal with with rumors on social media. That's particularly the case now that everybody in Indonesia seems to own at least three hand phones. You know this stuff just gets spread around so quickly. I don't know what so I wonder what is happening in Thailand. We think the current government would be more inclined to try and control social media. But as far as I can judge is not really doing so. I think that silly stories are going around about vaccines for example. What's the government policy just sort of basically shake, you know, say this is silly. Don't pay any attention and leave it at that. I think the government is is more interested in looking at sort of possible crackdowns on political activities. Questions. So it's all kind of pretty concerned about cases of Les Mages Day, for example, which, you know, for a short while got a little bit out of hand that the lid came off that for a while and now it's been quite firmly clamped back on. So I gather. But I don't think I get the impression times being less sort of anti-vax feeling among the general population perhaps ties have got other things to worry about. I don't know. I don't know either really I haven't heard much. And I haven't heard much in Malaysia which after all you know 60% of Malaysians and Muslim. And yet that doesn't seem to be very much in the way of anti-vaccination feeling you know, and if the Sinovac is all it's available I think many people are prepared to take it. There may be a perfectly good vaccine no reason to think that it isn't. I know when Jaco was publicly vaccinated a few months ago, he had the Chinese vaccine. And it is the only one that's widely available. I think I think some evidence emerged this week that it was the Sinovac was less effective than some of the other vaccines. Chinese are not exactly helping themselves by not making the data, but they claim to have carried out tests. They will be less effective but still even less effective. I wouldn't say it's useless. It's still worth having. And I know the big state enterprise in Bandung. I think it's called biopharma. And that makes a lot that has in the past made a lot of vaccines for domestic use in Indonesia particularly for polio vaccine and some of the other vaccines against measles mumps and so on that being given to babies and young children. They are now locally manufactured. I'm told they have a deal now with Sinovac. So, certainly in Indonesia, I don't know what Thailand's own capacity for making vaccines would be but they must have some capacity. They must have some. Yes. Yeah. So move on to a question from Thomas Larson. Thomas says, thanks, and it has been argued that the pandemic has accelerated some technological changes. This zoom talk is an example. To what extent is Southeast Asia experiencing similar technological benefits benefits in inverted commas. Um, well I've certainly tuned into several zoom seminars on a completely different topic. I tuned into one a couple of weeks ago in Indonesia, organized by the Academy of Social Sciences, looking at issues related to open access publishing. Far removed from current concerns about the pandemic, but is something that Indonesians I think other people in Asia are getting quite concerned about. On the one hand open access publishing seem to be a great plus certainly for Asians who can't necessarily afford to buy expensive textbooks and articles and those Lancet articles I mentioned earlier are available easily as a free download many medical articles now are I think in fact probably the majority. And certainly the Gates Foundation and other medical charities are dishing out large amounts of money for open access publishing. Certainly my last few visitors to Indonesia I'm sure this must be true in Thailand. Malaysia Singapore obviously but also the Philippines even now Vietnam. Computers are becoming much more widely available. And you know academics and also I think students are much more of a with downloading stuff from the internet, not always a good thing. I suspect some of what they download isn't terribly healthy but it does mean that an awful lot of academic publishing now. 10 or 15 years ago, a lot of academic publishing now is much more freely available in Southeast Asia, and I think on the whole that's got to be applauded. That's why I would urge colleagues, if they possibly can to make sure their articles and even their monographs are available on an open access basis, if that's at all possible. Because it is making a big difference I think across the region. Yes, a good point. I'll move on to a question from Tutku Zengin. Thank you for this very informative presentation. I have two questions. Firstly, what do you think of ASEAN's role in the economic recovery process. And secondly, do you believe if Southeast Asian countries can benefit from the rivalry between the US and China or not. And thank you in advance for answering the questions. That's two very big questions and I'm not sure. Let me first say on ASEAN, whenever there's a major crisis and you know I think back particularly for so-called financial crisis of the late 90s. Many people in Southeast Asia tend to throw up their hands and say well what use is ASEAN, you know ASEAN has done nothing. I accept it on the sidelines and sort of look hopeless. And there's some truth in that. And I think again, as far as I'm aware on issues like for example availability of vaccines, I haven't heard anything from ASEAN about this. And again, I think many people are probably thinking well what is the use of this outfit. On the other hand, you know I've always been sort of mildly inclined to defend ASEAN. I remember a couple of years ago a rather vocal Thai student told me, this was so, told me that ASEAN was completely useless and he didn't understand what happened. Remained a member. I can see his point of view. But on the other hand, it's a low key operation, it's not particularly expensive, it doesn't cost the countries a huge amount to join. And I think some have certainly benefited. I would say that about Vietnam. I think Vietnam sees ASEAN mainly in terms of a sort of group of friends that will help them when conflict with China emerges or gets worse. Elsewhere in the region, yes, there may be a certain amount of ASEAN fatigue. And clearly the current crisis in Burma is going to put all sorts of problems. I know there was a meeting with the Indonesian foreign minister while all accounts, a very competent woman, she flew up to Thailand a few weeks ago to have a sort of a summit with her time counterpart in the foreign minister in Burma. Now we won't be from Myanmar. We won't really know, I don't think we'll ever know what was said at these meetings, but I think it was an attempt to try and say admittedly the fairly low key wave of the Myanmar. Military just can't expect on young support for its current policies that things will sooner or later will have to change. On the other hand, you know, they're very pessimistic reports now saying Myanmar's on the route to become another Syria. And as I say, I think Thailand in particular, while the Thai governments obviously got other things to worry about. I think the situation in Myanmar and Myanmar is going to be a serious problem and they will appreciate support from other countries in the region because they're probably not going to get very much support either from the United States or China. Probably I suspect problems in Myanmar are fairly, fairly low down priority. The worry list, if you like, of the Biden administration. China seems perhaps entirely predictably China seems to be supporting the current regime. But I think, you know, if I was looking to the future and looking at challenges to ASEAN, yes, I think the problems in Myanmar certainly are going to become more serious, probably a lot more serious in coming months, years. And it's very, very difficult to see. I mean, some people think that, you know, the government, the military now is so immune to any sort of pressure from outside. But nothing is going to have much effect. It's a difficult situation that will certainly be a big challenge for the other countries in the region. Sorry, the second question was more about China, the China America conflict. Well, I think one of the good things that's emerged so far from the Biden administration is an obvious attempt to hose down at least some of the problems with China. They're not going to go away. And the Chinese government seems itself to be in a rather more belligerent mood now certainly was the case a few years ago. To what extent will this worry the ASEAN countries? Well, I think, you know, again, every ASEAN country really has a different set of issues when it comes to China. And, you know, I think Vietnam, the issues are serious. But then, you know, people say, well, Vietnam's had a thousand years of experience in dealing with China. And, you know, they'll find a way through, which is in one sense probably true. In one sense, I think, you know, and this again, I think is a diplomatic issue. Vietnam would appreciate support and certainly issues relating to the South China Sea. Vietnam would appreciate support from other ASEAN members. And I think it probably will get support. I mean, the moment Indonesia sort of sitting on the sidelines was not directly involved in the current disputes, but it may well know who knows how far this famous nine dash lines going to be pushed down further into the South China Sea. And if it's pushed down much further, it will affect the division. And nobody quite knows what to do, I suspect. But this is another problem that isn't going to go away. And again, I think the ASEAN countries as a group will have to get together and come up with some kind of response. That makes sense in the next two or three years and you'll be on. But now if I was looking, you know, you wanted to sort of push me to say, what are the challenges ASEAN will face? I think clearly the South China Sea is one, but I think also Myanmar and what happens in Myanmar is going to be a very difficult issue. And it won't just affect Thailand, it's going to affect other countries in the region as well, including Malaysia and Indonesia. Okay, and I'll move on to what I see is the last question in the box at the moment, and it's a second question from Thomas Larson. If there's time, and yes, Thomas there is. In the US and Europe, there's some evidence that the pandemic has triggered a rethinking of the macroeconomic framework. Governments spend and borrow with no apparent limitations. In light of this, I wonder to what extent the Washington consensus is being abandoned in Southeast Asia. My own view is the Washington consensus never really had that much influence anyway. Southeast Asian countries as a group attended on the whole to be reasonably conservative in macroeconomic policy, I think broadly that's true of most of them. Perhaps the Philippines has been a partial exception, although even I think recently as the Philippines has certainly gone for growth and achieved relatively healthy rates of economic growth. At the same time, doing so in a way that doesn't certainly lend itself to the possibility of future crisis. Everybody is dead clear what one might turn the Latin American trap or even now the Turkish track. So just a feeling some of you might have seen the rather interesting interview and the economist a few weeks ago with Muhammad chat about bus three who was the Minister of Finance in Indonesia and the second you do know administration. He had to deal with the so called, what was it the deeper tantrum in 2013, where Indonesia was classified as one of the fragile five. For no good reason that the Indonesians could see and I think that many other countries I mean the Indonesians still tend to feel that you know, at times they're being penalized for their own good behavior as it were. I think that's less the case now. But there's always this worry if we're so dependent on international markets on capital inflows doesn't this exposes the vulnerabilities. And I think it does but you know I mean all countries in the Asian countries are no exception. They have to weigh up the benefits of being, you know, tightly tied to international capital markets against the costs of imposing controls. But now some people now argue for more controls I mean I've even heard quite conservative central bankers saying well, you know shouldn't Indonesians think about more controls or, you know, aren't they overexposed to these so called taper tantrums and who knows when the next one's going to emerge perhaps. Some people were worried that the current problems in Turkey would spill over into Southeast Asia. I don't think they will and so far there's no evidence that they will but you know a lot of these people who said in London or Tokyo or what or New York and you know pushing huge sums of money around the world with the click of the mouse. But they don't really know an awful lot about what goes on in these countries. And if you know there's a crisis in Turkey today will perhaps there'll be one in Indonesia next week. Now one likes to think that markets are becoming a little more sophisticated. But yes it does worry me and then you've got all these, you know very difficult problems about the possibility of resurgence and inflation. And what this will mean to the global macro economy. And this has to hope that certainly central banks is enough coordination now that there won't be these spillovers certain countries, inevitably for political reasons are going to get themselves into difficulties and the current problems in Turkey, as far as I can make out almost entirely the result of domestic political problems within Turkey. I don't think they won't spill over. Because, you know, it's quite likely that they could. So Indonesia, Thailand, and even now Vietnam which has become a much more open economy. When was the case say 20 years ago. They just got to learn to live with these problems and this is another reason I think why the ASEAN countries could, as it were, wouldn't say, gang up, but certainly former block. They can deal with some of the likely issues in other parts of the world. I think that if asking on the scene is more coherent block. This could be beneficial. I hope, you know, I think this business of calling. I think it was Ben Bernanke wasn't that came up with this idea of the fragile five. Looking back, it was a completely stupid idea that really was not based in fact. It really revealed nothing except Ben Bernanke's ignorance about, you know, the macro policy making in these countries and indeed other countries across Africa and Latin America as well as Asia. But it's worrying. The Indonesians do feel, you know, in the past they've been punished for good back. I think the Thais feel this too. The Thais are still rather sore about what happened in 98. The fact that their so-called friends deserted them in their hour of need and left them to cope. Although they might admit the problems were largely their own making. You know, they were left high and dry and had to cope more or less on their own. You know, even today you talk to Thais that can remember that period and they're still pretty sore about it. And so are Indonesians. And the need to some extent Philippines. So, and I know people say that, you know, if you talk to high level officials in ASEAN, you always get this sort of underlying resentment, you know, they are out to get us. You know, they being the Americans or the Europeans or even the Japanese, they don't have our best interests at home. And I can understand that. Okay, well, we don't have any more questions in the box. I don't know if there's anything else that you would like to add and or any questions you have for the audience. No, well, thank you all very much. Some of these questions, as I say, I think the whole issue of the role of ASEAN going forward is an interesting one. It's one one needs to ponder a little more. It's very easy to write ASEAN off. And one sees that very often. As I say, even within ASEAN, let alone other parts of the world, but I do think that, you know, given all the uncertainties and the difficulties going forward in the region but you know also in the broader Asian region, not least of course, in China and China's relationships with other parts of the world. The more ASEAN can be seen to be standing together. I think the better for everyone. And I do hope. I'm, I'm afraid at the moment deeply pessimistic about Myanmar. But as I say, Thailand is certainly in the frontline. But one just hopes that somehow that situation will resolve itself. It's not easy. There are other problems, less serious problems. I mean, I tend to feel the ties will resolve their own problems in due course. I mean they always have in the past. The problem at the moment I think is serious because it's inevitably involved constitutional issues regarding the role of the market. And that's different. You know, it's different in Thailand now from even 10 years ago, just like 30 years ago, you know, I can remember the 1970s when the key, you know, intervened in the famous demonstrations in Bangkok that seems now a long, long time ago. The role of the monarchy has changed. I was going to have to come to grips with that and work out a way of dealing with the current problems and current personality of the current king. It's not going to be easy. Well, on that contentious note, maybe we draw to a close. But thank you very much and for your time and for giving such an interesting and insightful presentation has been really, really good to be able to host an event as well and get get back online and get some more activities going for the center. Thank you very much to you and thank you to Charles as well for helping to organize this. Yes. Well thanks Charles also and introducing me to the details of zoom. You're very welcome and it's this. I know a lot more now than I did a few days ago. Yeah, I hope very much that we can have a few more online discussions and perhaps sooner rather than later actually meet in person. It'll be good wouldn't it. Yes. Okay, thank you everyone.


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