SOUTHEAST ASIA FUTURES INITIATIVE CENTRE TO CHART REGION'S NEXT LEAP -- TENGKU ZAFRUL

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 10 (Bernama) -- Southeast Asia Futures Initiative Centre (SEAFIC) aims to bring policymakers, industry leaders, academics and innovators together to explore pathways that will define the region’s next decade from digital transformation and green growth to supply chain resilience, investment inflows, and better regional integration.

The Kuala Lumpur-based SEAFIC will provide grounded foresight for Southeast Asia’s future, not to predict what will happen, but to prepare leaders for multiple possibilities, SEAFIC founder and chairman Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Aziz said.

“In a new world order still being re-configured by geopolitical rivalry, tech disruption, climate transition, demographic shifts, and supply chain realignments, the real risk is not change itself but in being unprepared,” he said at SEAFIC’s soft launch in Jakarta today.

Also present were Malaysian Ambassador to Indonesia Datuk Syed Mohamad Hasrin Tengku Hussin, Indonesia’s Trade Vice Minister Dyah Roro Esti Widya Putri and Indonesian Business Council chairman Arsjad Rasjid, while ASEAN Secretary-General Dr Kao Kim Hourn delivered a video message.

Zafrul, who is Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) chairman, said to unlock ASEAN’s “golden decade,” one must complement collective solutions with foresight – whether it is deeper regional integration, stronger public–private collaboration, or improved institutional capacity.

By having forward-looking conversations, SEAFIC hopes to help make small and medium enterprises,  people and youths more resilient, relevant, and united, even as they navigate a far more uncertain global environment.

-- BERNAMA