The Bhutanese Leading the way.
The session, ‘Gelephu Mindfulness City: From Vision to Action,’ at the Bhutan Innovation Forum (BIF) offered some details on the potential businesses and investment opportunities in the GMC.
TER
The big reveal of the session was by HoBeng Lim, Managing Director, Finance, GMC who talked about a new currency for GMC called TER.
He said that at a high level, they have been experimenting with a new currency for GMC called TER which in Bhutanese, means treasure.
“If you use a food ordering app, you can tell in real time where exactly the rider is but when you send a remittance, you have no idea where the money is, which correspondent bank it is sitting in. Has it even cleared compliance?”
HoBeng said the idea for this new currency is to be based on the blockchain, as the blockchain is transparent, and you can see exactly where it is at any point. It’s cheaper and it’s more efficient as well.
He said this new currency TER will be backed fully by physical gold.
“So in a way, it’s a return to a reinterpretation of the gold standard of the past but we think we can do it in a slightly different way, based on the blockchain, where every unit of TER is backed by an immutable weight in gold that cannot be changed.”
He said this imposes strong monetary discipline on the GMC which cannot be a money printer and they have to be very prudent and disciplined.
“Let’s see where this takes us. With this new currency, hopefully you can improve efficiency in payments and serve the underbanked as well, because if you go through blockchain, it’s often cheaper and faster. So I invite all of you to be part of this journey as you build out the financial sector in GMC.”
Finance
In terms of opportunities available for both local and global stakeholders in the Finance sector HoBeng said he is part of the team that’s looking at financial services, building out the regulatory framework for GMC, and also building out the ecosystem, not just across traditional finance, but across FinTech and crypto assets or digital assets.
He said the next frontier of finance is all about things we can do online.
For GMC, the vision is to build robust financial services sector, really as an engine to support all the others, clusters and sectors, healthcare and beyond, and they are going to do this in a way that they think is based on global best practices.
HoBeng said the 3 Cs are important here. The first C is unique clarity.
“On the financial services side, we deliberately chose a financial regulatory framework that is very clear, easy to understand, modular and most importantly, the law has to be understandable by the average person.”
The second C is co-creation. “We do not want to build the financial sector from an ivory tower. We want to co-create this with all of you, so you adopt a very consultative approach, where we invite partners to come in, tell us your viewers, tell us what you need, and we can co-create a regulatory system that is business friendly yet robust and safe and sound.”
He said the last C is a customer. He said regulators get a bad reputation, because if you have any problems, you go to them, you write to them you don’t hear from them for weeks, for months, if not years.
“So in GMC, we want to be customer first, meaning that we want to serve you. You are our stakeholders as financial institutions, digital asset companies. When you come to us, we are there to understand your needs and to help you and respond to your questions.”
Since Bhutan is no stranger to digital assets they also want to build out a place that is not just for traditional finance, but for digital assets like crypto assets as well on the traditional finance space.
He said that given GMC’s positioning in the middle of so many vibrant regions home to almost 4 billion people, they want this to be an international financial center that anyone anywhere in the world can use.
It will focus on sectors like wealth management, fund management, and on the digital asset space.
“We will work on things like FinTech, financial technology, as well as digital assets.”
GMC Law
Ben Gaw, Managing Director, Legal, GMC said the vision is to have a simple, easily understood, commercially friendly, fair and just law.
He said Singapore law will be the primary law that will be anchoring GMC law.
This is phase one, where they will be looking, at things like incorporation of companies, keeping it easy, keeping FDI rules very light.
“The whole idea is we are open for business in GMC.”
He said GMC will have a robust regime as it will make sure there’s proper KYC.
Ben said they not going to embrace everything under Singapore law and they will also incorporate elements on financial regulatory from other jurisdictions as well.
He said Singapore law is a common law jurisdiction people are familiar with and many countries are also adopting it in commercial transactions.
He said for GMC it’s not just civil and commercial. “I think the message you want to send to everybody is, come to Gelephu. It will be an efficient country. It will be a country that values, you know, a good, robust legal framework, and, more importantly, it will be a safe country. And that’s why we will even be incorporating elements, of some criminal and corruption laws ensuring people who come here abide by the laws.”
In phase two they will also be starting to create, separate courts as well as the arbitration regime. “And also, the idea is that we will create GMC specific laws as we hear from the businesses.”
GMC will have independent executive, legislative and judicial systems which will be attractive to investors and partners. It will be giving an ecosystem that is very business friendly. With taxes, customs and duties and it will be flexible.
Health and Education
Xinhong Lim, Managing Director, Health and Education, GMC, said they envision this as a city for holistic health and longevity but it should not just be the domain of the ultra wealthy, and so this can be done in two critical parts.
One is to upgrade the existing public health system by filling in the specialties, upgrading the facilities, talking to the world’s experts about bringing the best in the class hospitals and health systems to GMC to set up shop and really upgrade the entire infrastructure.
They will also explore other novel methods like virtual hospitals.
GMC is an opportunity to scale preventive health, participatory health, predictive health, personalized health, and to realize this they are talking to the top experts all over the world like clinicians, wellness practitioners, and are trying to operationalize this.
“So it’s not we have this strategic vision, but what we really need at this point is to get projects off the ground.”
Xinhong said they are interested in projects that will bring people to GMC for longevity and health, and are designing unique programs that will be one of a kind.
“For instance, we are interested in a wellness and Performance Center for, you know, high high flying executives and sports athletes, for instance, that they can come here and it’s an opportunity for them to rejuvenate, but also then be inspired to perform better, and, of course, network at the same time.”
Thye are also interested in conventional clinics like esthetics, fertility, holistic, skin health and the like and they welcome conversations with partners to help them achieve this.
On Education they are leveraging and learning from the top institutions and top leaders all over the world, and they we have been in deep talks now with, for instance, some of the top business schools in Europe, and Australasia.
“And watch this space, we hope to make some announcements very soon for very concrete programs that we will build in scholarships, in teaching and courses and in events just like this one.”
He said these are knowledge convening, generating activities that will again bring people here and rally them to our cause and establish activity in GMC.
“I think we are encouraged by the traction that we are getting, and we will build on that in the coming weeks and months.”
Xinhong said skilling is absolutely important in all of the different domains that they have mentioned.
They are partnering with the top global institutions to map out all the different skills that they anticipate, and will form the pillars of the GMC, and then equip the people of Bhutan with the appropriate skills to form the talent pipeline that help them achieve that.
He said there’s the visitor approach, trying to bring in people by co-creating with academic partners, unique courses and curriculums, for instance, in the area of mindfulness and sustainability, in the Executive Business Education and Leadership performance, and trying to bring them here, experiencing this wonderful natural setting, using that as a resource for place based learning, and then also incorporating this sort of very deep self reflection.
“In addition to that, we are growing our own we are internationalizing the Royal Academy, and we are looking for partners and investors and donors to help us with that, as well. The Royal Academy offers a very unique curriculum in the Bhutan baccalaureate, internationally recognized very much about mindful learning and a personalized learning journey that encourages constant reflection, 360 feedback, very high touch, very close mentorship by teachers and equipping students not just with content, but learning how to learn.”
