Thailand, like Japan, is a country that is aging very rapidly as our labor force would be shrinking within this decade. Given that we were to rely on existing workers including informal workers from other countries in the region, our growth rate would still certainly trend downward. Again, increasing availability and attractiveness of automation will help mitigate that weakness in the Thai economy. The second trend is digital and governance. Currently, for example, people use digital payment as a way to access government income support schemes is something that will help improve the transparency and effectiveness of the government schemes. The overall trend towards digital together with the trend towards increasing transparency will help us in this regard quite significantly. Page 8 of 11  The third area, digital again not just to help with transparency but to help with our long-standing problem of not being able to move up the value chain as well as increase the value-added of many economic activities. For example, what are the things that we think Thailand is good at? What immediately comes to mind? One would probably think of food and the trend now is that people are increasingly concern about health, wellness, and want to know where their food comes from, not just the food itself but all of things that went into their food. Digital technology with ability to improve traceability in a transparent, verifiable way allows us at least to have the potential to increase some value-added of our food products.
• We have also set up a deal making platform called MATCH, or Meet ASEAN’s Talents and Champions) [15] , to connect global capital and the ASEAN enterprise community in 2018. This will help to grow the pipeline of companies that will eventually require listing in our public markets. • Singapore also organises the annual Singapore FinTech Festival (SFF) and this will be combined with the Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology (SWITCH) that is coming up on the 11-15th November, to provide a platform for industry players to gain greater understanding of fintech applications and developments as well as support innovative solutions to find commercialisation opportunities. • SGX is also working with licensed private market platforms to facilitate the listing process for portfolio companies. Such platforms provide PE/VC managers with opportunities to invest or exit, and provide a pipeline of companies that could list on SGX. Such private-public markets partnerships can serve as an engine of growth for our public markets and provide support for enterprises throughout their corporate lifecycle. 28 Đ Đ In keeping up with changes in our public markets, such as the rise of neweconomy start-ups and technology firms, exchanges have continued to innovate to provide product owerings that support the varying needs of these companies. • For example, SGX has joined global exchanges in Canada, Europe, and the US, in introducing the Dual Class Share (DCS) structure to support firms which have shares with diwerent voting rights to raise funds.