As a Global Growth Company (GGC) member of the World Economic Forum, the QI Group was privileged to participate in the 21st World Economic Forum (WEF) on East Asia that took place in Bangkok recently.

Executive Chairman, Vijay Eswaran, who has previously graced the panels of WEF’s East Asia Summit in Vietnam and Jakarta, and the Annual Meeting of New Champions in China, was invited to be a panellist at this event, on a discussion titled: Values: Lost in translation. The session was moderated by Kevin Lu, World Bank Group’s Regional Director for Asia Pacific.

The topic in question resonated very well with the audience, and during the interactive session Eswaran put forward some rather pertinent points:

““As mankind developed communities and generations, their values became stronger. And today, we have adapted to a whole new system and probably a new communality as well. Given the urban-rural divide, our value system is continually evolving and changing. Values we had previously developed have now become different as people have developed further,” he said.

“We have also developed communities, and youths are actively engaging in and shaping the values of the current generation. This is why it is critical to account for new world values in developing our economies,” he continued. Eswaran strongly believes that understanding the communities in the region is a key step to shaping common values.

On the whole, Eswaran agreed that the discussions at this Forum were more engaging compared to those in previous years. “What we recognised after the discussions is that it is not so much about values lost in ‘translation’, but values lost in ‘transition’,” he said.

In his conclusion, Eswaran urged East Asian economies to strengthen collaboration and guide the positive shift invalues away from the materialistic to a humanitarian-spiritual orientation. He also looks forward to the QI Group’s future participation in many more Forums such as this, which he sees as a door to shaping the region’s future opportunities.