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A new rupiah–Singapore-dollar settlement framework is the latest piece of a slowly accumulating regional shift toward settling trade in local currencies rather than dollars — within ASEAN and increasingly with China.
From 1 September, Indonesia routes its coal, palm oil and ferronickel exports through a single state company, DSI — a shift that makes price less decisive and rewards scale and reliability.
NESDC raised Thailand's 2026 forecast, but the upgrade is almost entirely an export story — domestic demand stays soft.
Signings at IIGCE 2026 moved three Indonesian geothermal projects to contract stage — the point where EPC and equipment demand begins, though financial close is still to come.
Vietnam's record foreign investment and its US$77 billion bank funding gap are two different kinds of money — and the quieter one, not the FDI headline, is the truer gauge of whether the growth holds.
As US chip controls move from where a chip sits to who is using it, the advantage in Southeast Asia's data-centre boom shifts toward operators who can show who their customers are — and companies that serve both the American and Chinese systems face the cost of running two of everything.
Indonesia's draft EV incentives are shaped around nickel-based NMC batteries, while nickel-free LFP continues to gain share globally.
Four jurisdictions supplied 84% of Vietnam's US$21.05bn in newly registered FDI over the first seven months of 2026.
ACFTA 3.0 and record component imports from China show one East Asian production network taking shape — and two rulebooks now set what a Southeast Asian address on it is worth.
A US$2.3bn plant with a Chinese EPC partner will turn East Kalimantan coal into 2m tonnes of methanol a year, while a single state gateway takes over coal exports.
The New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor moved a record US$76bn of goods in H1 2026, turning the inland-China-to-ASEAN leg into a costed logistics option.
Malaysia is replacing cheque-size incentives with a scorecard that weighs what a data centre leaves behind — jobs, skills, linkages — against the power and land it consumes.
In one fortnight Hanoi raised the minimum wage 7.8% and cut business red tape — a bet that investors now buy Vietnam's trade-deal access and position, not its low wages. The money agrees.
As Washington brings in its third tariff mechanism in five months, Southeast Asian exporters should price the levy — and scrutiny of where their goods are really made — as a standing cost, not a passing storm.
Vietnam's new mega-airport takes its first commercial flight on 1 December — with discounts to fill it fast.
Outside-Java projects took a narrow majority of Indonesia's realized investment in the first half — the distribution Jakarta has spent a decade engineering.
S&P's affirmation of Indonesia and Singapore's GDP beat are not signs the region has escaped the oil shock — they are the first clean read of how each economy's buffers are holding, and where the bill lands next.
With its EV import tax breaks lapsed, Malaysia now walls fully built-up imports into the premium segment — pushing volume demand toward local assembly.
Why the AI era may be rewarding strategic geography once again — as data centres cluster around the Singapore–Johor corridor, Southeast Asia's oldest advantage is reasserting itself.
The first real stretch of the ASEAN power grid is emerging not from regional planning but from two uncoordinated bilateral tracks converging on Singapore's demand.
Southeast Asian factories become the gateway to the EU — for those who make, not just assemble.
China's 2026–2030 carbon-peaking plan sets hard targets that keep its clean-energy industry building at full output — with export capacity increasingly aimed at Southeast Asia's power build-out.
Thailand's FastPass doesn't cut tax — it cuts approval time 20–50% across eight agencies. The edge is speed, and it accrues to strategic-lane projects.
Indonesia raised its 2026 nickel ore quota months after cutting it. The signal is not the level — it is how readily the policy floor moves.
China's critical-mineral export controls have widened since April 2025 — now consolidated under one security law and reaching China-origin goods abroad.
The corporate tax holiday that built Southeast Asian industrialisation is being retired under the global minimum tax — but the real investment case never rested on it.
The ringgit hit a seven-month low near 4.10/US$ as the dollar firmed, yet is down only ~2% YTD — dollar-driven volatility, not deterioration.
The Johor-Singapore corridor is open to some Chinese companies and effectively closed to others. Order 837 decides which is which.
China's first comprehensive outbound-investment framework supervises deals across their whole life, not just at entry. Three Southeast Asia investment types align with its grain.
Indonesia's 100% FX-retention rules treat exporters differently by trade-agreement status — and China has no Phase-1 pathway to the lighter bilateral terms.
Indonesia is making state enterprises the sole export intermediary for its five largest commodities — restructuring how USD 27–28bn of annual Chinese purchases are negotiated.
The Beijing summit produced managed competition, not a reset. For Chinese capital in Southeast Asia, a system that accommodates non-alignment is enough to keep building.
A Politburo resolution naming the private sector the economy's most important force carries a durability no FDI figure does — and from 2026 it is codified in law.
Indonesia's B50 biodiesel mandate diverts 3.5m tonnes of CPO from export — a structural supply shift, not a price spike, with no thicker pool of alternative suppliers.
Malaysia is quietly rejecting non-AI data-centre applications. The clearest-looking market is often where the window has already closed.