Kuala Lumpur
6th February 2013
The first event hosted by the ABC in 2013 was a meeting of the High Commissioner Premier Club. It was held at the Official Residence of the British High Commissioner, His Excellency Simon Featherstone, CMG. The meeting was attended by members of the High Commissioner Premier Club, mainly multinationals from the United Kingdom operating in the Southeast Asian region.
Among the attendees at this meeting was Karsten Vollmer, Partner at Foster & Partners, Jonathan Tedd, Director of Safeguards G4S, Barnaby Dicks, Regional Manager of Asia Currency De La Rue, Ir Phillip Chay, Managing Director of Mott MacDonald, Gerald Ambrose, Managing Director of Aberdeen Asset Management, Olof Rapp, Regional Director of Rolls-Royce Malaysia, Paul Houston, Commercial Manager, Balfour Beatty Rail, Mukhtar Hussain, Deputy Chairman & CEO, HSBC Bank Malaysia, Rowina Ghazali, Director, Shell, Jon Woollins, Managing Director, Weir Minerals Malaysia, Azlam Shah Alias, Government & Corporate Affairs Director, Tesco, Piers Willis, CEO of Rothschild Malaysia, Alistair Castle, Vice President, BAE Systems and Andrew Sims, CFO of Prudential Assurance Malaysia.
The Keynote Address was delivered by Nazir Razak, Group Chief Executive of CIMB Group. In general, Mr. Razak spoke about his views on Malaysia being a gateway to ASEAN for U.K. companies. Additionally, as this meeting was held prior to the 13th General Election in Malaysia, Mr. Razak dealt with the broader impact of this election on the economic environment in Malaysia and on ASEAN as a whole. Mr. Razak also touched on the need to strengthen the ASEAN Secretariat in order to fulfill the overall mandate of ASEAN.