- 2 months ago
At the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit 2025, the spotlight expands beyond trade and technology — to storytelling, cinema, and the creative economy. Nailah Huda joins Tan Sri Nazir Razak, Raja Jastina Raja Arshad, and Santharuban in discussing how ASEAN’s creative industries can drive growth, shape culture, and compete globally on Agenda Awani, 9.00 pm tonight.
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00:00This is Ajanda Awani with me Nala Huda and with the ASEAN Summit coming up all eyes are on Kuala
00:11Lumpur's world leaders meet together and discuss all things from trade to wars but alongside the
00:18summit sideline events shed a light and offer more tension on sectors and industries that are not
00:25usually given as much attention the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit ABIS 2025 highlights among
00:32others the creative economy and between 2003 and 2015 just to look at some of the statistics
00:38ASEAN saw an average annual growth of 11% in trade of creative goods including film production so at
00:46this hour on Agenda Awani you want to look at the creative industry how it's grown in the region in
00:51past few years and what we can expect from the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit or ABIS 2025 this year
00:57so joining us tonight we have Tan Sri Nazirazak chairman of ASEAN Business Advisory Council ASEAN BAC
01:04we also have Raja Justina Raja Arshad vice president head of Astroshaw and Santa Ruben Turai Sundaram CEO
01:11of Etika group of companies thank you so much everyone for joining us tonight on Agenda Awani
01:15I'd like to start with you Tan Sri just looking at ASEAN economies and where the creative industry
01:23fits because if we're looking at what you know leaders are talking about they're always talking
01:28about trade tariffs you know the AIs and the EVs tech industry obviously gets a lot of attention but
01:34where do you see the creative industry fitting or positioned in the regional economy do you believe
01:41that creative industries should get just as much attention well for sure and that's why we are
01:47highlighting it at this year's business and investment summit it's unprecedented never before has it been
01:54talked about at such a summit but I think it's important one is in terms of the real business
02:05side of it I think one can invest and make good money I have invested in a couple of movies
02:12and make good money and I think you know that can be done two is the impact is beyond the commercial
02:20side of things I think ASEAN needs to be better at telling its own stories you know there's some analysis
02:30that showed that there are 140 million books written over the course of history 140 million
02:39and only 375,000 titles about Southeast Asia ASEAN yeah and so there's just not enough storytelling
02:50about ASEAN and if you look at the impact say K-pop has had on Korea for instance it's about the image of the
03:04region and I believe it also translates into development investment and so on so I think we need to look at the
03:11creative industry at multi-dimensions and that's why this year we want to put it there I mean you say
03:22this is unprecedented for the ASEAN business and investment summit ABIS coming up on 25th October so what is
03:28different this time around why this shift in focus well no every year at ABIS ASEAN BAK tries to do better and
03:37better I think under Malaysia's chairmanship we are really elevating it to a whole new level if you look at the
03:44lineup of speakers and topics etc it is going to be a must attend event we have we're going to be discussing about all the
03:55key areas that I think will dictate the future of ASEAN I mean the broader context is I really believe that you know the world is
04:03uh is changing uh a new world order is emerging and how we act what we discuss uh how we position
04:13ourselves is going to be critical uh for the long term and what sort of position ASEAN has in the new world
04:20order so the timing is so important so that's why we want to be discussing really important issues like
04:26geoeconomics education we'll be discussing finance energy sustainability etc but on top of that
04:36I fundamentally believe there are two areas that are as important maybe not the numbers don't look so
04:42big but there are equilibrium one is philanthropy corporate sector businesses must do more for
04:49society so that will be discussed and two is the creative industry and in this case we want to zero in
04:55on movies and music you can't discuss so many things so I think we've brought a great panel uh to be
05:01discussing these uh two particular topics and I think you know as I said impact beyond uh the returns uh
05:08financial returns but more also in terms of impact on ASEAN storytelling I mean as you said I've had a look
05:15at the program and the lineup is looking quite stacked I'm sure it must be quite a headache trying to
05:20uh sort of set up the logistics surrounding that but um just you know of course I want to get your
05:24thoughts on um you know your first and experience dealing with the creative industry and having seen
05:29it grown um so much in the past five years in Malaysia but uh before that just talking about ABIS and
05:35looking at this um the panel that you've got especially one that's dedicated just to talk about the
05:41creative industry um of course looking quite stacked we've got leaders from across the creative industry in
05:46Malaysia and of course from other neighboring countries as well what do you think uh some of
05:51the lessons that we can learn from neighboring countries that we can expect from this discussion
05:57I mean there's so many things that we can actually learn I mean that's the whole point of having this
06:01panel to really understand how do we get to go cross borders because if we look at taking film for example
06:10in the individual markets local films are dominating the number one spot
06:15overtaking the very popular Hollywood franchises but on the ASEAN level ASEAN stage we have yet to find
06:21a footing um so that's why like this year when there was this one ASEAN movie Thai movie how to make
06:28millions for grandma dies become a huge phenomenon being able to cross borders we're like what's the secret
06:34because it is a drama it's a drama film that's managed to generate over 50 million USD
06:42it costs 1 million USD to produce and in Malaysia dramas films don't really generate that much sales
06:51it actually will the most that we've actually generated is probably like 12 million but grandma
06:56making millions generated 18 million ringgit grandma literally yes made millions yeah so there's so many
07:02things for us to learn as in like is it structural barriers um are we not investing enough confidence or
07:09capital into our own stories because 1 million USD for a drama film is actually quite expensive um so
07:17maybe we need to inject more capital in this kind of genre so it's a lot of things that we need to
07:21learn so so we're very excited to have like very exciting five voices from the panel so we have nelson
07:29walk who's the CEO of mockster he's also the producer and the financier of how to make millions for
07:33millions for grandma dies so he'll be there he'll be touching on asean film financing we also have anga sansoko
07:40so he is award-winning director from indonesia he's also a film producer he recently um jumbo the number
07:48one animated film in asean jam managed to generate over 10 million admissions in the box office so that's
07:56something he'll bring to the table um he will be bringing production and creative entrepreneurship we have um
08:01we have um panupang panupong tajapai bol ceo of ticket melon so he'll be touching on exportability of
08:08music across asean we have agnes our very own agnes rosario the chief content officer of astro and she
08:14will be touching on scaling of asean content as well as protecting the ip touching on piracy and we have
08:22santha ruben and then ruben here who's joining us today i'll be talking about um brand investor collaborations
08:29and giving a perspective in that area so there's so many things that we can learn from um these five
08:35very different experts from different ecosystem and for us to address how can we actually scale up and
08:43how can we go beyond borders crossing our countries yeah yeah um no that's interesting and you mentioned
08:49a little bit about um investment and whether that's um the missing piece of the puzzle right whether
08:55there needs to be a lot more investment in our local um creative capital um ruben i do want to get
09:01your thoughts on this from a business perspective how do you um see this uh shift in focus from being
09:08just an advertiser to um an active investor in the creative capital i mean do you see um this industry
09:16becoming a lot more viable sustainable has it changed much in the past five years or so sure so i'm just
09:22going to just maybe reposition what you just said it is not possible for us to be an investor in this
09:27industry and it's the reason is very clear every single cent that we have we need to invest into
09:33selling beverage because that is the business that we're in now why i say reposition is this will be true
09:38to any consumer good product company they would invest into growing their business right having said
09:43that we have anywhere between five to six percent of marketing fund allocated to growing the business
09:49business now the decision here is do we do we market creating advertisements that consumers
09:55don't want or channel this fund into movie and content creation which probably has a much better
10:01lifespan so the investment in this context is a byproduct of that decision because it is it
10:07no no organization that is not directly involved in a film industry is going to say that hey i'm
10:11going to because even if they do it's going to be centered around charity right and that's not sustainable
10:17so we need to reposition and relook at the way the way we function and so we've taken a position that
10:23advertisements are not what consumers want content is what they're willing to pay for right and content
10:30travels a lot faster than product so if we want to build a business that's large in in the asean
10:36region primarily it is important to have an identity built through actually pushing out what's culturally
10:42valuable to us i mean this is just what i see from an audience perspective i mean when we're seeing
10:49commercials and product placements in films from thailand and indonesia um it's not um direct
10:57advertisement as you say that's not what the audience want that's what they want content right
11:02so how do you see that shift then in malaysian film okay so i'm just going to take a few steps back
11:07right the cost now everyone is a content creator right so that means the ability to produce content
11:15has now just increased in multiple folds which also means that you share this eyeball share with so
11:23many sources so many different sources right so cost cost to produce uh commercials advertisement has
11:29actually gone lower now there is of course a few different ways of doing it now the way we've
11:34structured what how how we work is i give you a simple example let's take festivities it's almost
11:39a norm to have a chinese near commercial and a hariraya commercial these i refer to as perishables
11:46it is done as soon as the festivities are uh over now what we did last year was we
11:51we sort of accumulated these funds and worked with uh with astro for a movie that i felt was very
11:57meaningful abbas and uncle mike now as a by-product of that astro has given us two commercials i mean we
12:02still do the same two commercials but we have repositioned our investment so we still have the
12:07basics so why i wouldn't necessarily call this an investment is that we don't expect a return from
12:12the content success what we require as a base of the business has been satisfied the success of the
12:18content now becomes a bonus if i'm making any the roi is not necessarily as tangible right precisely and
12:26the success of the content now becomes not only a bonus there's a longevity to it and there is what
12:32we're doing has got a lot more purpose as opposed to just putting a 30 second ad that's going to cost
12:36as much telling you to drink one of our products no that's interesting the business model hasn't exactly
12:42changed it's just little kings uh to work on i mean how do you see this i mean this is just one aspect
12:47of the changes that we're seeing a lot in um the local filmmaking scene but um just overall what are the kind
12:53of shifts positive shifts like this that you're seeing in the filmmaking scene locally i think what
12:58we're trying to we see now is a change in perception um in the past film has always been seen as a
13:05cultural venture as opposed to a commercial viable one and so it's great to see um now we're getting
13:12brands on board investors on board because i think in airsocial what we have done is we've also
13:17um changed our framework our investment model framework um therefore everyone in a way shares
13:24that creative risk and and enjoying the commercial returns of movies and one thing that you can actually
13:32see now or people are seeing that films is in a way of a long tail has long tail value because it doesn't
13:40just end at theoretical releases after that the streamings because streaming giants out there they want
13:46regional content they're willing to to invest in that and after streaming we also have merchandising
13:52opportunities licensing so it's not you funding just a one-off project it's actually it's a very much
13:58scalable um it's interesting you talk about this shift in perception i do want to get your thoughts on
14:19this i mean you are you know long known as a banker but as you said you've had your hand in film production
14:27and you've made some money from it uh that's what you said yourself but um do you see this shift in
14:32perception and in how people see and how businesses see filmmaking as a more viable industry well i think
14:39we're trying to promote that uh and i think um if i look at my experience and i was you know completely
14:46new to it i invested in experts for instance and it's a malay movie uh and then i get told that it is
14:56going to be shown in cambodia but not in indonesia and i can't figure out why so of course you know
15:03asian is all about economies of scale and i keep saying we we tell the world we are 700 million people
15:08but we have all these restrictions at our borders right and if we bring down those restrictions then the
15:14economics of doing anything changes completely you know our movie making is not about 30 million
15:20people it's going to be a 700 million people and it changes the how much money what we can do the
15:25quality we can produce and that's why uh talking about every industry as an level is important and
15:30as i said this movies is important because it goes beyond the economics you know it's really
15:37if we make great movies in asean we win oscars from asean then people will just be that more familiar
15:43with our region yeah so the talent has always been there yes but what do you think are some of the
15:49immediate changes that that should be done i mean you can't figure it out i mean we have 700 million
15:54people but yet you know our singers and our movies are not there at the global stage we need to figure
16:00it out and part of it is because we're not really 700 million people with 10 fragmented markets right
16:06and we need to bring those borders down how do you see that then trying to connect that or fill that gap
16:12um perhaps one of the ways is trying to better connect a creative industries the creative capital and
16:18content that we have with private investors with capital yeah yeah and you know i've had many
16:23discussions with astro on this and and we also need to look at it from from uh the whole um kind of
16:31investor management side uh of the equation uh that's one uh but two is you know just to make the
16:37point about abyss is we're not just going to be uh talking about these things right i want that at
16:44the end of each panel we come up with very clear recommendations on the way forwards that's another
16:51depression factor of this abyss and i think after the conversations on the on movies and music in asean
16:59i really would like to hear um uh frida i think is is going to be uh moderating i really like her to
17:06conclude um about what exactly we should recommend uh to our heads of state our governments or uh as to
17:15how to improve uh the whole economics uh of music uh and movies for azean i mean justina how do you see
17:21um issues and you know surrounding the creative industries being highlighted on not just a national
17:29stage but an international stage like abyss being discussed and um listened to and heard by regional
17:36leaders going on recommendations about how they can create actual policy changes um industrial changes
17:44about how the industry can move forward i think it's highly important um there needs to be a unified
17:50policy framework i don't think there is one at the moment um even film grants and incentives um
17:57it's very much for individual markets as opposed to have an asean um incentive so there's a lot of
18:03things that needs to be done uh there's a lot of it's they're very high barriers to entry as what
18:08chan sui mentioned like it is quite difficult for our films to to get into the indonesian space um to
18:16give you some context malaysia is actually very welcoming um of foreign films so with population
18:22of what over 33 million we had over 400 foreign films last year indonesia 54 right is there some
18:32protectionist policy there yeah i mean um they have their policies um because if it's a foreign film
18:38they have limited number of halls yeah um to also get the best distributors you know there's a lot of
18:44there's a lot of barriers so i think that's why abyss is so important um as for us to understand and
18:49how we can if we all realize that it would because in asean we have so many familiar values
18:57familiar values but at the same time also very diverse yeah so imagine a malaysian story that can
19:02be told in 10 different ways at the same time that story can also travel so there's so many things that
19:08we can learn and and i'm so glad that abyss is where you actually see creativity and capital coming together
19:13and hope we get a very win-win situation from here yeah yeah um robert what are some of the
19:19things that you'd like to share with the panel um talking about how to connect creative and capital
19:24or um are you also there to learn from our neighboring countries a little bit of both and i'll just take
19:30from what tansi just mentioned just now while we have six to seven hundred million population in asean
19:34it's 10 10 different nations that's so much fragmentation like for us
19:38uh we have a manufacturing facility in bangi but it's a lot easier to send products to sabas
19:43rawa than to just send it to sumatra which is just right across right um and this is about because of
19:50fragmentation so you look at how korea and japan has done there is strength in concentration it's
19:56these are homogeneous cultures therefore and a simple example even on astro i was surprised at some point
20:02the number one channel on astro was sun tv indian population is actually very small but that's because of
20:07concentration what's happening in the asean region is that we are very fragmented in malaysia
20:12especially we're also very very fragmented so the pool of money is only that much and it's already
20:15fragmented i guess in order for us to to to drive content to another level we probably need to take
20:22certain steps right one is example like what we're doing if more consumer product company come forward
20:28and again not to invest not to support not to sponsor but to repurpose then it sounds a lot more
20:33sustainable alternatively some some decision made at policy making level right so for example
20:40you need to have x amount of actors from asean or whatever when you make movies these then encourages
20:45the movie to travel uh to another market right so some some something something a little bit more
20:51strong like that needs to take place in order for the creative industry to because i view the creative
20:55industry as an as an advertisement to the nation now while we speak about k-pop and korean movies
21:02if you look at the spillover effect cosmetics yeah vehicles handbags yeah i've fallen guilty to all
21:09of those i mean a doll that i can never understand all these has actually benefited singularly from the
21:18fact that the content is actually thrived so another way of looking at it is if from a government policy
21:23making standpoint is to identify that this is going to carry some of our other products and culture
21:29across asean it probably would make sense as well do you think your friends in the industry have
21:33picked up on this or do you think you're still sitting on a land mine or a gold mine i sort of
21:38thing is this is not rocket science to me like whatever i'm saying is not rocket science everybody
21:43knows it's whether they are able to execute it so now one of these issues in terms of and i just
21:47give you example of us working with movie producers is conventional thinking of many marketers who
21:52want to dictate how a storyline runs yeah right so i always believe that we should stick to our day
21:58job so even when we work with with movie producers we leave the autonomy of the product placement
22:03because the product placement of that one two second is not going to decide whether our brand sells or
22:08not yeah so we leave that autonomy 100 of the directors what we are focused on is the commercial
22:13that comes to us right so that mindset however doesn't sit well with most people and that is the singular
22:19barrier i feel today i mean you chuckled a little bit there is that rare to come across that kind of
22:24independence and creativity very rare um because at the end of the day when it comes to film
22:30our is very much dependent on how many tickets that we can actually sell yeah if it's going to be a
22:35hard sell of a brand or product no one's going to purchase our movies yeah so it's very important
22:41that we find out the right partner who understands that yes at the same time is how can we subtly bring
22:46your message across but leave the the writing to us do not dictate and i'm going to find that kind
22:52of right partnership yeah we are coming to the end but i do want to um i guess get your thoughts
22:59on this um you know having discussed all of that and coming to the abyss what are some of the key
23:06messages that you want to get across with abyss with this highlight not just on the creative industry
23:11but um on other sectors like philanthropy as you said um what message do you want to get across here
23:17well i think the big message uh from abyss uh is this i'm i've i'm going to start abyss by saying that
23:24i will propose that we talk today not about how great we've been we talk about how we should have done
23:33better and how are we going to do much better going forward so the focus will be looking to the future
23:39uh that's one and as i said it's going to be very action oriented i think i i think our
23:44championship's been very action oriented anyway so every panel as i said will be will conclude with
23:51the way forwards and for instance in the uh in this uh panel of movies and music i would love it if we
23:57ended up by saying we are going to recommend to the aSEAN governments that movies storytelling spillover
24:05effects as ruben pointed out this is is is compelling yeah it's so compelling that actually
24:12aSEAN needs to pull resources and maybe create an aSEAN creative industry fund right so that we have
24:20serious money uh behind uh making movies and music in aSEAN and that serious money goes to making them but
24:27also making it easier for them to travel across the region right reduce the fragmentation uh that is you
24:35restraining the growth and development that is where i would love it if we concluded that way
24:41plenty to look forward to at the aSEAN business and investment summit 2025 and uh great times ahead
24:47exciting times ahead for the local industry creative industry a lot of uh things to look forward to for
24:52creatives um you know with much more trust and freedom given uh to our local talent uh that is all on
24:58agenda awani tonight thank you so much tan sri justina and reuben for joining us um and of course we'll
25:03look forward to abyss 2025 and that is all on agenda awani tonight with me nalaudah we'll catch you
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