April 4, 2021 Azlan Othman “Brunei Darussalam’s economy is still heavily reliant on oil and gas and the positive growth of non-oil and gas sector is not sufficient to drive the economy and thus we need to continue intensify our diversification efforts.” This was said by Permanent Secretary (Economy) at the Ministry of Finance and Economy Dr Hajah May Fa’ezah binti Haji Ahmad Ariffin at the very first Brunei Economic Forum with the theme, ‘Towards a dynamic and sustainable economy’ held at Senate Room, Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) yesterday. She added, “I hope today’s forum will give impetus for innovative and practical ideas that can be turned into quality action. Personally, Brunei’s micro economy with unique characteristics may not be able to prescribe a normal textbook solution. Nevertheless, I believe that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. They are many policy lessons that we can adopt and learn, and most importantly we have something that we didn’t have 20 or 30 years ago which is the advancement of digitalisation and technology.