ASEAN Business Opportunities Highlighted in Hague Forum

ASEAN Business Opportunities Highlighted in Hague Forum

THE HAGUE 11 June 2025 — Business opportunities in the ASEAN region were featured at a business forum organized by the Philippine Embassy in The Hague, in its capacity as the current Chair of the ASEAN Committee in The Hague (ACTH), together with the the ASEANCham-EU, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), and the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency (NFIA), at Het Nutshuis in The Hague on 06 June 2025.

Around 70 participants, representing close to 50 businesses and companies, from The Netherlands and Belgium participated in the event which also received support from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Economic Affairs.

During his remarks, Ambassador J. Eduardo Malaya highlighted the various business, trade, and investment opportunities in ASEAN for businesses in the EU. He noted the substantial growth in the region of sectors such as e-commerce, finance and infrastructure, which encourages investors from all over the world to look at ASEAN for growth opportunities and for business ventures.

Mr. Joses Wong, Secretary-General of ASEANCham-EU, discussed their group’s goal of addressing the lack of ASEAN focused business groups in the EU as well as their various activities to bring government and businesses together and to promote region-to-region trade.

Citing ASEAN’s continued challenges in terms of both tariff and non-tariff barriers, and in relation to the ongoing ASEAN-EU Free Trade Agreement negotiations, Mr. Wong noted that stopping the clock on EU’s Trade and Sustainable Development (TSD) requirements would be a step in the right direction to eventually sealing the deal. He likewise shared that parallel to the negotiations of a regional FTA, four (4) bilateral FTAs are currently being negotiated by the EU with ASEAN countries (The Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia). Once concluded, these will be in addition to the existing EU FTAs with Vietnam and Singapore.

Mr. Tjerk Opmeer, Director of Innovation and Knowledge of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, remarked on the Netherlands’ status as an ASEAN Development partner and one of the top investors in ASEAN. He likewise introduced “tech-based markets of the future”, which are areas that The Netherlands considers as opportunities for collaboration, such as in agriculture, clean energy, digitization and semi-conductors, photonics and clean energy. Lastly, he acknowledged ASEAN’s importance not only to the Netherlands but to the global economy.

Mr. Hans Kuijpers of the NFIA and Ms. Laisy Deng of the RVO, in turn discussed opportunities for investments in the Netherlands, noting that they are looking for companies that fit into existing institutions, particularly in the field of climate smart agriculture and sustainable food system, advanced manufacturing, robotics, and semi-conductor industry, among others. They also shared the RVO’s goal of making entrepreneurship easy, impactful and profitable and expounded on ways by which it could assist ASEAN businesses in investing in the Netherlands.

The event had two panel discussions, with the first one featuring Philippine Ambassador to the Netherlands J. Eduardo Malaya, Charge d’ Affaires Premrudee Lotharukpong of the Royal Thai Embassy, Deputy Chief of Mission Ishrin Ishrak of the Malaysian Embassy, and Minister Counsellor F.X. Widiarso of the Indonesian Embassy. The panelist presented recent policy developments in their respective countries that promote trade and investments. Also attending is the Deputy of Mission of the Embassy of Viet Nam, Mr. Le Tuan Anh, and the Charge d’ Affaires of the Myanmar Embassy (based in Brussels), Ms. Saw Yu New.

The second panel featured ASEAN and Dutch companies, which shared their practical insights in doing business in the Netherlands. These companies included Xinyx Design from the Philippines, FPT Software from Vietnam, BIPO and Circle Economy from the Netherlands.

Ms. Annemarie van der Heiden, Head of South and Southeast Asia Division of the Asia and Oceania Department of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, delivered the closing remarks, noting that the ASEAN region remains a focus for the Netherlands. She discussed EU and ASEAN’s strong economic ties and still having much to offer each other in terms of trade and investment opportunities. According to her, sustainability will be key in the two regions’ economic relationships in the years to come, which is also reflected in ASEAN’s 2025 theme.

Aside from their promising economic cooperation, Ms. van der Heiden likewise shared expectations for the EU and ASEAN to increasingly work together in security areas such as maritime security, conflict prevention, transnational crime, and cybersecurity. As the two regions unfortunately face common challenges, both are united in their search for solutions to address these challenges.

The forum was followed by a networking event hosted by ASEANCham-EU. END