ASEAN’s Time

Source details

The 11 ASEAN economies now form a $4.5 trillion bloc, home to about 700 million people and growing at over 4.5 percent annually.
ASEAN has become a major destination for manufacturing as firms hedge reliance on China; carmakers, chipmakers, and electronics firms are expanding in the region.
Foreign investment reached $244 billion in 2025, climbing 10 percent, and manufacturing investment jumped by nearly 50 percent.
Despite openness, ASEAN trades surprisingly little with itself: only about 22 percent of ASEAN exports goes to its own members.

Intra-regional trade intensity: about 22 percent of ASEAN exports go to ASEAN members, versus 61 percent intra-EU.
Two highly open economies, Singapore and Vietnam, trade enormously with the world but relatively little with their ASEAN neighbors.
The bulk of cross-border trade within ASEAN consists of intermediate goods (parts and components) that feed export-oriented factories.
Consequence: ASEAN has built a shared production line but not a shared market, leaving prosperity dependent on outside demand and exposed when external demand weakens.

IMF estimates indicate that dismantling the region’s nontariff barriers could raise ASEAN’s output by 4.3 percent over the long run.
The 4.3 percent output gain is characterized as equivalent to adding over a third of Malaysia’s economy.
A deeper home market could provide an additional avenue for growth and resilience as external trade flows become less certain.

Reducing nontariff barriers across ASEAN to deepen the regional market and boost output.
Leveraging recent investment inflows—$244 billion in 2025, with manufacturing investment up nearly 50 percent—to strengthen intra-regional supply chains and final-goods trade.
Diversifying demand sources by expanding regional market integration to reduce exposure to external demand shocks.
Mobilizing regional policy coordination (context: finance ministers gathering in Bangkok) to design measures that build a deeper ASEAN home market.

Source: F&D Magazine article "ASEAN’s Time" by Andrew Stanley, September 2026.