Southeast Asia
Eastern promises
Southeast Asia has a
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With this year’s CCW taking place in Kuala Lumpur, it would be odd if
we didn’t turn our focus to Southeast Asia. Sam Fenwick takes a look
at the current trends in the region, particularly in Malaysia
www.criticalcomms.com June 2019
well-earned reputation
as a region on the rise.
While FocusEconomics is
expecting growth to “ease
slightly this year” due to “lingering
trade tensions and moderating growth
in China”, the region is still projected
to see growth that puts that in Europe
and North America to shame (the
business intelligence company’s
panellists predict growth of 5.1 per
cent, 3.6 per cent and 6.6 per cent
in 2019 for Indonesia, ailand and
Vietnam, respectively).
According to a piece written for
the IMF by Manu Bhaskaran, CEO
of Singapore-based Centennial Asia
Advisors, a number of “globally
competitive clusters of activity have
emerged across the region”, such as
on ailand’s eastern seaboard, now a
major petrochemical and automobile
manufacturing hub, with the ai
government working to expand
the Eastern Economic Corridor.
Meanwhile, Malaysia has “the Penang-
Kulim corridor and the southern
region of Iskandar, which are also
globally competitive manufacturing
and logistics clusters”.
Bhaskaran adds that governments
in Southeast Asia are working hard to
cut regulation and tackle corruption,
citing Indonesia and Malaysia’s e orts
in particular.
networks etc, being delayed”, which
is being driven for example by the
change of government in Malaysia,
and he adds that “there is a heavy focus
on cost in that particular part of the
region”. He says in Indonesia, “a lot of
planned procurements for public safety
have been pushed o and there’s just
not the money or the budget going
around at the moment”.
Olivier Koczan, head of Secure
Land Communications at Airbus, adds
that Airbus is currently expanding a
public safety network in Indonesia.
In the Philippines, Airbus delivered a
TETRA system to Hanjin Shipyard
and has recently re-entered the market
and will deliver one to the Solaire
Casino resort in Manilla. It is also
expanding networks in ailand and
Malaysia. In the case of the latter, the
network in question belongs to SMC,
an Airbus value-added reseller based in
Kuala Lumpur which is also a TETRA
(Airbus) operator and service provider,
serving transport, utility and industry;
A lot of planned
procurements for public
safety have been pushed off
and there’s just not the money
or the budget going
around at the moment
He notes that the region does have
some challenges, such as a major
demographic transition in the form
of slowing population growth, while
“ageing trends will become more
pronounced”. In addition, a report by
the Asian Development Bank describes
Southeast Asia as being on the front
line of climate change and warns that it
could cause economic losses of $230bn
(or 6.7 per cent of GDP) each year by
2100, while also noting the region’s
vulnerability to rising sea levels.
Recent developments
Over in ailand, Motorola Solutions
announced last August that it is
deploying a nationwide (up to 95 per
cent of the country) TETRA network
on behalf of CAT Telecom, operator
of ailand’s telecommunications
infrastructure, which will serve
more than 200,000 users including
government departments, oil and gas
companies, transportation operators
and other critical organisations. At
the time of the announcement, the
network was due to be completed at
the end of 2019.
Terence Ledger, Sepura’s sales and
marketing director (prior to his current
role, Ledger was the company’s head
of Asia Paci c and for eight years was
based in Malaysia), says he is seeing
“some of the spending that should
have been happening, so refresh of
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