Recap of CCCJ Speaker Series Vol. 3: The Canada-APAC Business Relationship: Are We On Our Way to a New Normal?

On July 22, we held our CCCJ Speaker Series Vol. 3 along with Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong.

This event was Moderate by Annamarie Sasagawa, Director, Corporate Culture (Global) at Kao Corporation (Tokyo)

Tuuli McCully, Director, Head of Asia- Pacific Economics at Scotiabank (Hong Kong) shared macroeconomics perspective across Asia as we will experience a period of slow economic growth, slow globalization and isolation around the world. Political tension stays elevated and intensified. Economic growth of 2020 is negative and companies based in Asia will have a hard time operating their business both in China and the U.S. 

Dr. Stephen Nagy, Senior Associate Professor at International Christian University (Tokyo) spoke about a few key points and the selective decoupling is a key take-home message. Japan has a budget for global supply chain and by focusing on their market home and sectorial base, free market. U.S. China tension remains in the coming years as it is a long-term situation. 

Their presentation was followed by Q&A as we had several live questions by the audience.

The recovery of Japan and Hong Kong will be led and affected by China's global recovery as we all have closer links to China. Both panelists also spoke about opening up the borders for international travellers which is crucial for business travellers and tourists to live a new normal life, however, air travel will take a long time to recover and will struggle for the next 2 - 3 years to reach pre-covid levels even after the vaccines. Boosting domestic travel is one key to recovering from the economic shock.

We are in an uncertain, and tough situation at the moment but let's remember that every country is in the same boat. 

CCCJ would like to thank our panelists, Tuuli, Stephen, attendees, our moderator Annamarie and CanCham HK for your participation!