CGS International Convenes China-ASEAN Summit to Boost Capital Flows

Five hundred guests. Two days. One central pitch: China and ASEAN’s trade relationship has matured, and now it’s time for the money to move with the same fluency as the goods. That was the working thesis behind the CGS China-ASEAN Business Leaders Summit, held at Singapore’s Swissôtel The Stamford under the banner Where Two Blocs Meet. SGX Group organized the event alongside CGS International Securities and China Enterprises Association (Singapore), with UOB serving as strategic bank partner, according to klsescreener.com’s coverage of the September 21 session.

Wang Sheng, chairman of China Galaxy Securities Co Ltd, framed the moment bluntly during his welcome remarks: China and ASEAN are already each other’s largest trading partners, he said, but the next opportunity lies beyond trade — in investment, innovation, industrial collaboration and capital market connectivity.

A Belt and Road ETF and a $1 Billion Private Equity Vehicle

Wang used the summit to announce that CGS International, working with partners, will launch what he described as the first offshore market’s Belt and Road bond ETF, channeling offshore renminbi into onshore Belt and Road-themed bonds. He called it a concrete achievement in China-Singapore financial connectivity, broadening asset-allocation choices for offshore investors, according to klsescreener.com.

That product sits alongside two others CGS has already brought to market this year. In April, CGS launched the Galaxy Orientis China-ASEAN Investment Programme, a private equity fund with backing from China Investment Corporation, Indonesia Investment Authority and the State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The fund’s size is US$1 billion, with CGS International serving as general partner, and it will focus exclusively on diversified investments across ASEAN. Wang told the summit the vehicle is designed to seed an ecosystem: it will back ASEAN private equity and venture capital targeting unicorns and startups, which he said should eventually produce more ASEAN IPOs and strengthen the resilience of regional stock markets.

In January, CGS listed the Galaxy Bosera MSCI China-ASEAN Economic Linkage Select ETF on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange — the first Hong Kong-listed ETF built around equity assets from both China and ASEAN. Wang said the fund is expected to be added soon to the ETF Southbound Connect scheme, having already drawn active participation from major global institutions.

Ambassador Cao Zhongming’s Numbers: $515 Billion and Seventeen Years

His Excellency Cao Zhongming, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the People’s Republic of China to Singapore, used his guest-of-honour address to lay out the scale of the relationship in figures. China has been ASEAN’s largest trading partner for 17 consecutive years, he said, while ASEAN has been China’s largest trading partner for six consecutive years. Bilateral trade exceeded seven trillion yuan last year, and from January through July this year, total trade between China and ASEAN rose 24.7% year on year, accounting for 21.8% of China’s total foreign trade over that stretch, according to klsescreener.com’s account of his remarks.

China is willing to work with ASEAN to accelerate the building of a closer China-ASEAN community with a shared future and make positive contributions to regional stability, prosperity and development.

Cao Zhongming, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the People’s Republic of China to Singapore

Carol Fong’s Case for a “Capital Gateway”

The summit’s first panel, Empowering Capital Flow Between China and ASEAN, was moderated by Carol Fong, Group Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”) of CGS International, and drew Ian Chung, Executive Director, Markets, Infrastructures and Intermediaries Department, Monetary Authority of Singapore; Soravis Krairiksh, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Markets Officer, The Stock Exchange of Thailand; Shahrul Amry Abdul Malek, Director of Market Development, Securities Commission Malaysia; Iding Pardi, Director of Business Development, Indonesia Stock Exchange; and Abhishek Bakshi, Head of ASEAN Issuer Services, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited, according to identical accounts published by Yonhap and Aninews. The panel focused on market connectivity, regulatory cooperation and cross-border investment frameworks along the corridor.

China-ASEAN capital flows are already happening. The opportunity now is to make those flows more transparent, more investable and more scalable through public markets, building a stronger China-ASEAN capital gateway that supports companies, deepens liquidity and gives investors better access to the region’s growth.

Carol Fong, Group CEO of CGS International

A second panel, Activating Singapore’s Growth Layer: Next 50 as a Channel for China-ASEAN Capital, was moderated by James Ong, Group Head of Asset Management at CGS International. It examined how SMID-cap companies are positioning for growth, broadening investor participation, and capitalising on product innovation including ETFs.

Closing the Wealth Gap: The Keynote Angle Yonhap and Aninews Both Flagged

Beyond the panels, keynote speakers included Yang Mulia Tengku Datuk Seri Utama Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, Chairman of the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) and Chairman and Founder of the Southeast Asia Futures Initiative Centre (SEAFIC), who discussed closing the wealth gap between China and ASEAN as a competitive advantage; Khairy Jamaluddin, former Minister of Health, Malaysia, who addressed ASEAN’s opportunity in a new era of strategic competition; and Tan Sri Andrew Sheng, Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Global Institute, University of Hong Kong and International Advisory Council Member of CIC, who spoke on shared prosperity in a multipolar world.

Across those addresses, closing the wealth gap and building local capability were positioned as the foundation for the region’s next phase of growth, with ASEAN+3 now larger than the G7 in purchasing power terms and expanding at a faster pace, per the identical framing in both the Yonhap and Aninews accounts. Guest-of-honour addresses were delivered by Laksono Widodo, Chief Investment Officer of Indonesia Investment Authority, and Edward Zhang, Executive Managing Director, Head of Private Equity Investment Department III, China Investment Corporation, who collectively examined how the depth of China-ASEAN trade, manufacturing, technology and supply chain linkages can extend into stronger capital connectivity through institutional coordination, trust and complementary partnerships across the corridor.

Where the Sources Diverge

The Yonhap and Aninews write-ups are near-identical press releases covering the panel structure and keynote list in full. Klsescreener’s reporting, filed the day the summit opened, carries the material the others omit entirely: Wang Sheng’s product announcements, the private-equity fund’s sovereign backers, and Ambassador Cao’s trade figures. Neither the Yonhap nor Aninews accounts mention the Belt and Road ETF, the $1 billion investment programme, or the $515 billion cumulative investment figure. None of the sources specify a launch date for the Belt and Road bond ETF beyond describing it as forthcoming.

What comes into view once these accounts are read together is a summit built in two layers — regulators and exchange officials debating market mechanics on one panel, sovereign-fund and embassy figures citing trade totals on the other.