Grooming entrepreneurs in Asia

Source from (The Star Online): http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/10/6/business/12092875&sec=business

Published: October 07, 2012
By CECILIA KOK
cecilia_kok@thestar.com.my

MALAYSIANS may not be familiar with the name Ramya Weerakoon. But in Sri Lanka, Ramya is quite a household name, having built her own business from scratch despite the challenges of being a single mother in a conservative society.
Ramya's gentleness and humility belie the inner strength and steely determination that has brought her to where she is today a successful businesswoman leading a diversified and export-oriented business in Sri Lanka.

During a short bus ride to dinner place in Macau, Ramya, the chairman and managing director of Ramya Holdings Pvt Ltd of Sri Lanka, shared her philosophy, “the more the odds were against me, the more determined I became to persevere through and become successful”.
It is easy to strike up a conversation with someone who is as friendly as Ramya. And as she opens up, she tells her life story, which in fact is an inspiring one.
Ramya was widowed in her early 20s after losing her husband in the Sri Lankan Civil War in the early 1980s. When tragedy struck the family, Ramya was then still heavily pregnant with her second daughter.

As a young widow and single parent in her conservative society then, Ramya became some sort of a taboo in her community. She was looked down upon, and every attempt to get financial assistance to start a small business to feed her family was turned down.
To cut the story short, Ramya says she went ahead, took the risk and mortgaged the limited assets that she had then to raise finance. She managed to start a cottage business, which has since grown into an internationally recognised organisation, specialising in garment manufacturing for luxury brands, horticulture and leisure.

Ramya's company, which is named after herself, is now providing thousands of jobs to her local community. And she feels content in what she is currently doing in helping to build up her community.
Indeed, Ramya is the epitome of a successful entrepreneur, which is characterised by an individual or group who takes risk to innovate new products, services or technologies and turn the innovation into a productive venture or business.

She was among the many successful Asian entrepreneurs who had attended the inaugural Asia Entrepreneurship Forum (AEF) that was held in Macau last week.
Organised by Enterprise Asia, a non-governmental organisation based in Malaysia, the AEF is an annual event that seeks to bring together established entrepreneurs, government leaders and academia from the region to share their insights into entrepreneurship. The whole idea is to promote entrepreneurial development in the region as a source of economic growth.
Malaysia will play host to the AEF next year, with the event expected to be held in the historical city of Malacca.

Growth engine
Increasingly, the role of entrepreneurship in driving national economic development is being emphasised by experts around the world.
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), for one, finds from its study that global development has entered a phase where entrepreneurship will play an increasingly important role. It argues that entrepreneurship will contribute to growth and employment creation in advanced, emerging and least-developed economies alike.
UNU-WIDER's two-year study has resulted in the publication of a book entitled, “Entrepreneurship and Economic Development”, in which the institution also stresses the role of the state in supporting entrepreneurship development to ensure a desirable social outcome.

At the AEF 2012, Enterprise Asia chairman Tan Sri Dr Fong Chan Onn (Malaysia's former Human Resources Minister) argues that nurturing and developing entrepreneurship, especially among the young, is a key growth engine of any country. Entrepreneurship, he points out, has immense potential to deliver the much-needed socio-economic benefits to a country's people.
And in the current challenging economic times, experts say, entrepreneurship development can well be the answer to overcome the storm.

“Entrepreneurship can help an economy ride out a downturn,” Fong says.
Noting that the global growth engine is already shifting from the West to the East, Fong argues that Asia could sustain its dynamic momentum through entrepreneurial development, especially in a still-fragile global economic environment.

“In today's shifting market, entrepreneurship can be the single most important foundation in developing Asia into an economic powerhouse,” Fong says.
“Under the current challenging economic situation around the globe, Asia has demonstrated that even under extreme pressures and challenges, it is steadily becoming the global leader or world economy and has maintained positive growth throughout.

“In order to sustain this growth, it is vital for all of us in Asia to build on our entrepreneurial resources and build a borderless world,” he explains.
The global economy is currently experiencing unprecedented volatility and change.
The US economy, for one, remains in the doldrums, with stubbornly high unemployment rate and below-par growth. The “fiscal cliff” that is supposed to hit the world's largest economy early next year only serves to exacerbate the fragility of the country's financial health.

And to make matters worse, the eurozone debt crisis remains unabated. The problems plaguing the 17-nation European region seem to deepen by the day, with no convincing solutions in sight. Already in recessionary phase, the negative developments in the eurozone are threatening to curtail global economic growth.
While Asia remains a bright spot of growth in a gloomy world economy, the region will still have to contend with the spillover effects of Western economic weakness through the financial and trade channels.

“Asia will not be immune to the economic weaknesses of the western developed nations,” Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for emerging markets of Spain-based financial group Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA, reminds entrepreneurs gathered at the AEF 2012.
“The spillover effects are something that Asia will find difficult to avoid, given that we are living in such a highly-interconnected world,” she explains.
Garcia-Herrero believes the trend that Asian entrepreneurs have to contend with in the days to come will be in the form of increased protectionism, the signs of which are already emerging amid the deteriorating global economic conditions.

Fong believes the key for Asian entrepreneurs lies in strengthening ties and collaborating closely to promote intra-regional business opportunities.
On another note, Fong emphasises that government policies alone could not change the fate of the Asian societies, but entrepreneurs could be agents of change in determining the progress of the region.