ASEAN Set to Honor 11 Businesses That Prove Growth Can Include Everyone

Manila, Philippines—Nearly a decade after the Philippines introduced the idea of "inclusive business" to Southeast Asia, the region is set to recognize what it actually looks like in practice. Eleven companies, one from each ASEAN member state, will be honored on 22 September at the Ninth ASEAN Inclusive Business Forum in Pasay City for building business models that create real income for people usually left out of the formal economy: women, persons with disabilities, small farmers, and rural artisans.

"After nearly nine years of this work, the focus now is on a simple but important question: how do we turn these frameworks and commitments into concrete action?" said Trade and Industry Undersecretary Ceferino S. Rodolfo in a press briefing at the International Media Center in Pasay City for the 58th ASEAN Economic Ministers’ Meeting. 

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The awardees answer that question with numbers, not slogans. In Singapore, coffee chain Foreword Coffee built a business where about seven in ten employees are persons with disabilities or people managing mental health conditions, proof that inclusive hiring can run a profitable, multi-outlet business rather than stay a one-time gesture. In Cambodia, agri-food company Confirel works with 130 palm-sugar farming families and is now planting the first of a million cacao trees meant to give rural households a second, longer-term source of income. In Indonesia, spice enterprise Agradaya sources from more than 500 farmers, over three-quarters of them women, turning small harvests into products now sold in more than five countries. In Timor Leste, natural and herbal products company M2T is transforming traditional knowledge and locally available resources into quality products with strong local identity, added value, and market potential. And in the Philippines, host-country awardee Kawayan Collective has supplied over 95,000 treated bamboo poles for social housing projects, a homegrown, lower-cost alternative to imported steel and cement. The remaining awardees come from Brunei Darussalam, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.

"Inclusive business is ultimately about creating meaningful opportunities for low-income communities, smallholder farmers, MSMEs, and other groups to participate in business value chains," Rodolfo said, adding that the goal now is to help move the idea "from policy frameworks to practical action."

This year's forum carries the theme "Building Capacities for Inclusive Business" and marks the anniversary of the framework the Philippines first proposed to ASEAN in 2017. It is organized by the Department of Trade and Industry together with the ASEAN Secretariat, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), the OECD, and the ASEAN Foundation, and will include the launch of a new OECD report on the economic contribution of inclusive businesses across the region.

The forum is part of the series of meetings under the Philippines' hosting of the 58th ASEAN Economic Ministers' Meeting and Related Meetings, with outcomes feeding into the broader agenda ASEAN Leaders take up at the 49th ASEAN Summit and Related Summits this November.