this is Roundtable.
Boao Forme for Asia or BFA is a non -governmental and non -profit international organization which has become a platform for dialogues among leaders of national governments, industrial and business circles, and academic circles of countries in Asia and other continents about the important issues in Asia and the World.
We'll get into the details of what is happening at this year's Annual Conference, which, by the way, takes place March 25th to 28th.
After that, tiny fingers tap, so cute.
Bright screens glow.
A familiar scene for modern parents and babies, perhaps.
But as they explore these digital worlds, a question arises.
Is screen time for infants okay?
We're so careful about their comfort, but what about the impact of these small digital moments?
Is it a harmless peek or something worth considering?
Coming to you live from Beijing, this is Roundtable.
I'm Steve. And for today's show, I'm joined by Niu Honglin and Yu Shan.
First on the program.
The Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2025 is being held from March 25th to 28th in Boao, Hainan Province, here in China.
The purpose of BFA is to promote and deepen the economic exchange, coordination and cooperation within Asia and between Asia and other parts of the world.
It also aims to offer a high -end dialogue platform for governments, enterprises, experts and scholars to jointly discuss economy, society and environment and other relevant issues of course.
A report released at the forum says China and the Asean countries are the most appealing economies in Asia, so how will their future development help boost the global growth?
Yushan and Yeohongling, good afternoon to you both.
Heungling, you've been there multiple times, yes?
Yes, actually I have been in Boal and covering the Boal Forum for three consecutive years.
Not this year for sure.
You had to do roundtables.
Yes, but during those three years, actually it was very interesting and nice experience.
I remember my second year, the Car HAVING app was kind of a new thing and that is why in the Buao area, if you are taking a cab to the Buao Forum venue or from, actually you can get a cab free of charge in the locations.
You get free coffee, you just go there, standing in the queue at the very beginning, 10 minutes, and then one -and -a -half hour, I was kidding, for the free coffee.
And of course, the most important and exciting thing is that as a reporter, when you're covering the event, you get to go to different forums. So the Boao Forum is not one, just one forum, it's just different locations, different whole, and having important, smart people, talking about what they have already studied for so many years, and they take their insights, they exchange their ideas, and they try to figure out what is the best direction for development, for their industry or for the entire region.
So it's very exciting.
You go sign up for these different forums, go listen to these smart people talking and find out that your takeaway and what your experience you write a report.
And that is a really fun experience.
Being able to hear intelligent people exchange ideas is definitely something quite amazing for me as a young reporter at that time.
Yeah and it's at a beach location.
Oh definitely. So there's another bonus for it, right?
Before we get into this year's event, if you don't mind can we have a little background on exactly what Boao is, where it came from, why it got started?
Oh yeah, because this is also the first time I get to just get a full picture of what this forum is about.
So, apparently the Bo -Ao forum for Asia, the BFA, is like you said Steve, a nongovernmental and nonprofit international organization for a conference, and we know that the forum is mostly about Asian and more, because Asian in the global context is worth a lot of discussion and we'll go through it piece by piece today, and of course it's got a major focus on the economic topics and that has a lot to do with his origin upon being established.
So, the BFA, as I just learned not so long ago, was born at the turn of the century in 2001, and that was amid a wave of globalization.
And back at that time, Asian economies which was once characterized by rapid growth were grepping with significant losses following the financial crises, so recognizing both that immense opportunities and also challenges ahead.
26 Asian Pacific countries, which later expanded to 29, came together with a shared vision and bearing key historical insight, all of these countries they anonymously agreed to create such a dedicated platform for political and business dialogues.
One that's fostering economic coordination, regional cooperation, and open, inclusive approach to just address global issues while amplifying Asia's voice in the world stage.
So over the last 20 years, apparently BFA has borne witness to Asia's takeoff since the new century and has also joined emerging economies in pulling through a flurry of challenges.
and since the forum was incubated in the aftermath of the you know the Asian financial crisis, it was born with a mission of just responding to changes unique of varying times and also boosting just collaborations, cooperation amongst countries around the world.
Financial crisis 97 -98 I think is what you're referring to, right?
You mentioned challenges what types of challenges does BFA try to solve or what types of problems?
It's not all economic related, right?
No, apparently not, because for example, there was one epidemic called the new SARS epidemic back in 2003.
That's when the newly minted form first encountered such a global epidemic, something that's not directly economic or policy -related but is affecting everyone that's on that roundtable.
And in this predicament, the Forum organized discussions, ending up with a conclusion that the SARS impact on the economy of Asia and the world at large would be interim and reversible.
And though back then that forum was still a young platform, the voice gathered from that Year's Forum brought confidence and hope to Asia amid the panic of the SARS epidemic.
Back in 2003, I was only like a second -year primary school student.
I didn't know that such big decisions were actually made in Hainan in the other south of China where this forum was held maybe just nearly for two to three years.
So that's one major decision that was made during the Boao Forum that actually made a and since then whether in the international financial crisis in 2008 as we all know or the European debt crisis into in 2011 BFA always served as such a critical platform for policy communication Just among countries in Asia and the rest of the world Hmm So yeah And just adding a little bit on top of that nowadays when we look at the bigger picture here Apparently there are so many major risks affecting global and Asian markets including geopolitical tensions and fragmentations, of course, I'm not going to go
through each and every one of them, but all of these fragmentations are posing great threats of course, to regional and global trade and collaborations as well.
So amid all the fluctuations that's happening that's ongoing nowadays, it's really important that we have such a platform for people to gather together and just encounter in dialogues, and how to deal with the challenges that we all face.
Joint efforts on all sides then, for the overall well -being of this region of the planet.
Sure, when we say it's not just about economic development, we're actually saying economic development is not only related to economic development.
The overall situation, including, like you said, geopolitical situation.
And for example, energy situation, whether or not we're looking at a traditional way of using energy, or we're moving towards a green development strategy, we're also talking about empowering different groups of people, like empowering women, empowering the younger generation, having their voices heard in these kinds of platforms. So yes, Boa Forum is called or is centered around economic development.
but in order to have good momentum in economic development, we need the world to be a better place on all fronts.
Maybe a better way to phrase that would be it's not all about business.
It's not all about business.
But it is somehow related to economic development.
This is a really, really important event, isn't it?
And it happens every single year.
So, let's get into it, then.
Where exactly does Asia stand now?
Well nowadays, let's just say there's one report that's released from the Boa Forum called the Asian Economic Outlook and Integration Progress Annual Report 2025.
And based on that report, the global foreign investment have increased their reliance on Asian economies.
And also in the same report, China and the ASEAN countries, the Association of Southeast Asian nations are the most appealing economies in Asia to attract foreign investment nowadays.
Also, the report mentioned at one point that despite increasing global economic uncertainties, Asia nowadays has remained as a key growth engine for the world's economy.
It weighed real GDP growth rate is projected to reach 4 .5 % in 2025, which is an increase from 4 .4 % from last year.
And at purchasing parity, the ratio of Asia's GDP among the global total is expected to rise from 48 .1 % in 2024 to 48 .6 % in 2025.
That's also a rise too.
And when we look at the overall situation of employment and income.
That's also turning upward in Asia as well with the unemployment rate projected at 4 .39 percent in 2025, which is lower than the global rate of 4 .96 percent.
In general, we see that Asian countries are nowadays booming to become one of the major state regional economies here, well, all over the world, as we see from the bigger picture.
So, yeah, nowadays we could totally see that the stand of Asia's rise is on the rise and is having a bigger voice on the global stage as well.
What about China's development?
Well, even though we want to take a look at the bigger picture, let's use the indicator of GDP first. Actually, as a recent China Daily Report says, economies including China, India, Vietnam and Philippines, Mongolia, Cambodia and Indonesia are expected to maintain a high growth rate of over 5 % this year.
Good news! And China continues to be the center of global manufacturing value chain since we know that the country has all of the industrial links of different categories listed by the UN.
So we see that since 2017 global trade in intermediate goods has been more reliant on China, then on North America, and in 2023, global dependence on China for intermediate goods stood at 16%.
So yes, but like I said, well these are just indicators.
More importantly, we see China in Asia among other Asian countries, the area, or the region is developing to a more comprehensive and more greener kind of developing way instead of focusing only on what we call simple goods, that's the kind of low added value kind of goods we're looking at the higher end of the industrial line and also we're trying to be more innovative in boosting economic development as well as different factories and at the same time, the quality over quantity strategy has been there for quite a long time here in China.
We're definitely going to be talked about or actually being talked about.
Yeah, it's a big conference this year.
The theme for this year is Asia in the changing world towards a shared future.
The primary goal of this year's conference is to advance international development and cooperation and there are going to be a lot of countries and a lot of people represented there.
Exactly. I was just listening to a podcast that someone is interviewing someone at the Bao 'o forum onsite, and according to that interviewee, who claimed to have been on Bao 'o for consecutive four years, this year, the scale is relatively larger and bigger comparing with previous years.
And there is data to prove that.
Because this year's forum brings together 2 ,000 representatives from some 60 countries and regions.
That includes leaders from Russia, Indonesia, Laos, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, along with around 120 ministerial level officials, and also leaders from 30 international organizations as well.
There are all sorts of dialogues and conferences and sessions that's ongoing in Hainan right now.
That includes promoting energy transitions in Asia and how to build an open world economy?
What are the challenges and solutions?
And there's also talks about cross border e -commerce collaborations.
And one that's very interesting, that's the China and ROK, that is Republic of Korea, business dialogue that's forcing, say, international trades, and one that I'm particularly interested in, the women's roundtable.
So apparently there's various female leaders gathering together in their round table talking about women's leadership as well.
So yeah, all kinds of talks going on that's participated by all of these some thousands of representatives from all around the world.
Yeah, lots of media coverage too.
1 ,100 journalists from about 150 media organizations, so there's lots of people there for different reasons.
But as I mentioned before, this is a really important forum.
We talk about economic globalization, we talk about regional integration.
Asian countries, there's a need to strengthen cooperation amongst each other, but also with other parts of the world.
The reason for this forum is to enhance mutual exchanges, enhance cooperation.
And it's now a common task for the group to find a way to cope with challenges, the challenges the ongoing and never -ending, it seems, challenges brought about by globalization." That's so true, isn't it?
You know, globalization, for many, many reasons, is a really wonderful thing, but with it comes a laundry list of challenges, it seems. The goal, of course, is to maintain economic health here in this part of the world, and that's why they do it every single year.
Let's get a little bit more specific about China's and Asia's development and how it helps to shape global growth.
One thing, for sure, in the center of the stage when everyone is focusing on would be green energy or green development.
Actually, we see that another report released by the forum highlights the region's progress addressing renewable energy, under the title Sustainable Development Asia and the World Annual Report 2025 addressing climate change Asia going green.
And we see the detailed fields include that Asia positions itself as a potential leader in advanced battery materials, biodegradable plastics, among others.
We see the region boosts its strong industrial capacities and policy support for green development.
and, you know, every year, at least for those years that I've visited Wao forum, I've reported Wao forum, green development has always been a theme and it happened in different ways.
There are different types of sub forums talking about how to, for example, transition the current energy in our very specific industry into green energy, how to do it.
And there are also even the kind of demonstration little booths that you can visit.
they call it carbon bar or something related to this name showcasing how to transform, for example, your drinking water bottle or the lid of it into a tiny little souvenir.
They collect all those lid of the bottles and they smash them into little pieces and then put them into a molding machine and put and then have your name printed or carved on it or having different logos carved on and change it into a key chain that you can take away.
And it is somehow a way to show you that in our daily lives there are little things that individual can also do.
So these kind of demonstration, these kind of technology, tiny way to showcase the technology that is being used in the specific link of an industrial line is possible.
So all of these are definitely happening.
And there's also the free trade ports related theme, according to China Daily.
Gas and experts participating in the free trade port development session under the forum, highlighted that free trade ports can drive connectivity and opening up forward. And guess what?
One I think still several years ago, Hainan is becoming becomes the world's largest free trade port.
Oh, wow. Yes. And we see that in the impressive participation at the 2025 forum, it shows how important promoting free trade is, especially in a turbulent world where unfair trade caused by protectionism is rising.
And according to EACNS .cn, we see Banki Moon, chairman of Boao Forum for Asia, China said that Hainan is transforming into a magnet for attracting global talent, capital and resources, as well as a tourism, shipping, logistics and financial center.
And from a first -hand perspective, I tell you is true, I was there when the free trade zone was opened and I did a lot of shopping.
It was really, really fun.
So yeah. That place is known for...
I mean, when you say Hainan, for our listeners who are not familiar with China's geography, Hainan is an island located south of the mainland, right?
And it's known for its beautiful beaches and tropical weather, very hot weather down there.
So when I hear Hainan, the first thing that I think about is tourism.
But I guess some people in this room, the first thing they think about is shopping for that location.
I mean, same for me, too.
I've only been to Hainan for like maybe one time when I was a kid, and the main impression I have for that province is just how beautiful the Chinese Beach is there.
You can get it almost the things you can get from, say, traveling outside of China.
One wouldn't just imagine themselves being on the beach and say, oh, this is in China.
But that beach and that all well -developed tourism there in Hainan is what used to impress people as a major attraction there.
But nowadays, as Honglin you mentioned earlier, Hainan is obviously the world's largest free trade port now.
And we're talking about free trade, and apparently it doesn't really affect one country, China in particular, but also influencing the world economy as well.
Because, well, this is according According to the English bull alphorm official website, that Ban Ki -moon again said in his speech that WTO figures showed that by October 2024, trade restrictions had affected 11 .8 % of world imports, and 3 .2 % of world exports as well, with no signs of meaningful rollback any time soon.
And with half of the world's population in over 70 countries having new leadership in place, we may have to face more uncertainties, complexities in the coming years and maybe new developments in the...
Sorry, unilateralism.
And the protectionism in the year of 2025 as well.
With all the ongoing, say uncertainties, encouraging free trade is one major policies that we're trying to perform as we see how it's done.
I mean these are these are some of the challenges that we were referencing without referencing them directly when we talked about globalization, right?
New leaderships bring their own new plans and things change and when things change countries have to adjust and make new plans right Yes.
And that's another reason why forums like this are important.
They should exist and on top of these major challenges that people are trying to find a way to face, actually, there are something fun happening around in Boil Forum as well.
That is, you see the young minds, smart young people are discussing what they are interested in.
They are talking about how they are utilizing new technologies to transform their industry or transform their community or giving back to people who have been while taking care of them for a long time, and they're talking about how to use their important and also quite really smart initiatives to transform their own people.
And you see, actually, just yesterday or the day before yesterday, there was this forum allowing 13 young representatives from China, Japan, India, the UAE, Saudi Arabia to engage in a face to face exchanges in multi languages.
So they're sitting in this huge round table, not the small one that we're sitting around here in the studio, a huge one.
And it's covered in the blue.
If you know what that is, if you don't go take a look, there's this blue theme color of the ball for all the time.
So it's a huge table and they're sitting together thanks to the help of technology.
They're able to use their own languages and sharing what they've done as a young participants in their own community.
And you see there are representatives from different parts of the world, different parts of Asia, different parts of China.
You see young people using artificial intelligence to incorporate it into their manufacturing industry, manufacturing, clothing manufacturing industry.
and they're sharing the idea that nowadays, when they make deal with other companies, instead of only talking about the design, the material, the texture of their clothing, they're also talking about how to use artificial intelligence in their different parts of their business and they also talk about how to use how someone who is not that, or at least not a major of AI, is using companies or technologies like Deep Seek to design their own community logo, so these kind of conversations also happen and being able to communicate with fellow young leaders in the country or around the world as well
as talking to those senior ones this is the kind of platform Boao is providing people with.
Yeah, I'm really happy we had a chance to learn about this because for me, I was unaware of the Boao Forum for Asia or BFA, but obviously it's an important event this year from March 25th to 28th.
We learned a lot today and I'm sure more stories will continue to come out of the forum in the following days as well.
