Southeast Asia at the Crossroads: Three paths to prosperity

A Mckinsey Global Institute report (November, 2014) points out that Southeast Asian countries are at the crossroads of a "Middle Income Trap".It suggests that they can address productivity challenges by capturing three global megatrends -

(a) capitalizing on ASEAN Economic Community integration and building a more competitive manufacturing sector as China's labour costs continue to rise;

(b) more than 90 million people will be moving to the cities in Southeast Asia by 2030, doubling the consumer class to 163 million households. Creating cities with a high quality of life will demand some $7 trillion in investment in infrastructure, housing, and commercial space; and

(c) five related technologies—the mobile Internet, big data, the Internet of Things, the automation of knowledge work, and cloud technology —are likely to drive major productivity gains.

Download MGI Report - Southeast Asia at the Crossroads - Three paths to prosperity - November 2014

Whether individual countries are able to embrace all or any of the above would depend on diverse imponderables. Some of the main imponderables are identified in an earlier strategic scenario simulation of Southeast Asia's trajectory to 2035 conducted by Wikistrat, a cloud-sourced global strategic consultancy of which I am a senior analyst. The resultant report dated October 2014, was written by me as the simulations's Lead Analyst. Edited by Wikistrat, the report is the outcome of synthesizing collaborative online efforts of 59 Wikistrat analysts across the globe.