Disruption, Digitisation, Resilience

25 DISRUPTION, DIGITISATION, RESILIENCE : The future of Asia-Pacific supply chains Even through the pandemic, Asian economies have largely remained committed to greater — not less — economic integration, as enthusiasm for large trade deals such as the RCEP and CPTPP illustrate. An economic/financial crisis was picked by 16% as the supply-chain shock managers are most concerned about — with 28% and 36% of those in North America and Europe, respectively, putting it in top place. Mr Jelev echoes these sentiments, referring to the embrace of localisation and onshoring by governments as worrying. It is a growing challenge, he says, for large companies with global supply-chain networks to address these concerns of government “to make sure you’re in line with their agenda, but at the same time, to also make sure they understand that a resilient supply chain is not necessarily an onshore supply chain that is as close to you as possible”. If your citizens are literally facing life and death situations, you’re going to do what you feel is best to do, and you’re not going to be particularly worried if it violates the provisions of the WTO, or bilateral, or regional trade agreement that you’ve got Stephen Olson, senior research fellow, Hinrich Foundation The second trend, in contrast to the first, has more to do with Asia’s perceived love affair with free trade. Several Asian economies have benefitted immensely from export-oriented growth over the past few decades and the region has come to be one of the big proponents of free trade. This reflects in the views of supply-chain specialists based in the region, very few of whom fear the global trading system is imminent.