ASEAN is an economic organization established on Aug. 8, 1967, and includes ten countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia.
The convergences between ASEAN and the GCC lie in the fact that they are influential geographical regions, as the location of the GCC countries acquires great strategic and economic importance in terms of international trade corridors, in addition to the fact that the GCC countries have the largest oil reserves in the world, estimated at 33% of the total global reserves while five countries of the Council export about 18% of the world's oil needs.
As for ASEAN, the population of its countries is about 700 million people, which is equivalent to 8.8% of the worlds population, but ASEANs trade market extends to 2.3 billion people, equivalent to about a third of economic activity in the world and it is expected to expand further, especially after the signing of the economic partnership agreement between the ASEAN and the countries of the Indo-Pacific, the most important of which are China and India.
In 2020, according to the World Bank, the total economic output of ASEAN countries reached $3 trillion, making it the third-largest economy in Asia and the fifth-largest economy in the world after the US, China, Japan, and Germany. The ASEAN economy is expected to grow by 4.7% in 2023 and 5% in 2024, driven by healthy domestic demand, net exports, and a faster recovery in the services sector.
As the Asian powers appear diligent in their pursuit of protecting their interests in the Gulf region, which focuses on providing energy, securing its supplies, and obtaining mutual investment opportunities, the economic data of the GCC countries in recent years indicate an acceleration of their direct foreign investments there, which frames the future relationship for the coming years in the economy, food security and technologies, amid the changes that are ravaging the climate of competition between the traditional major powers globally.
The State of Qatar has moved to raise investment levels and diversify its sources and needs from ASEAN countries, as the past few years have witnessed steady growth, embodied in various Qatari investments that included the energy, financial, real estate, communications, agricultural business, hospitality, and Medicine, and culminated in the opening of a main office for the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) in the Asia-Pacific region in Singapore. Some prominent Qatari companies had a presence in Indonesia, such as Ooredoo, Nebras Power, and the Qatar National Bank Group (QNB).
In Malaysia, Qatar invested about $5 billion in the Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex (PIPC) in the state of Johor. In 2013, Qatar signed a project that allows Malaysia to compete with Singapore to become a regional center for the petroleum industries in Southeast Asia.
On the same level, the investments of ASEAN member states in the State of Qatar have increased steadily, with prominent projects in oil and gas, hospitality, information and communications technology, construction, and retail. Some ASEAN member states play a vital role in supporting food security efforts in the State of Qatar as part of its Qatar National Vision 2030 (QNV 2030).
As for the Gulf, data published by The Economist magazine in a 2022 report indicates that the volume of investments by the GCC countries in the ASEAN countries amounted to about $13.4 billion in the period between January 2016 and September 2021, and Singapore is one of the members of ASEAN and has a free trade agreement with the GCC countries that dates back to 2008 and covers about 99% of Singaporean domestic goods, and came into force in 2013 while two separate free trade agreements between Malaysia and Indonesia with the Gulf Cooperation Council countries are still being proposed.
The GCC countries are racing against time to invest in ASEAN countries, as Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) has turned to the energy sector in Southeast Asia through the joint oil refinery project in Vietnam and a partnership with the Indonesian corporation Pertamina to develop an oil refinery complex in the east of the Indonesian island of Java. Moreover, Saudi Aramco announced $7 billion worth of investments with Petronas petrochemicals in Malaysia in 2017, which represents the Saudi company's largest investment outside the kingdom.
On the other hand, ASEAN countries are seeking to increase their imports from GCC countries, which amounted to only 6% during the period between 2016 and 2020. According to an economic report issued in 2021, electronics represented 28% of GCC imports from the ASEAN, followed by machinery at 12%.
Last August, ASEAN celebrated its 56th anniversary under the presidency of the Republic of Indonesia under the theme "ASEAN Matters: Epicentrum of Growth," emphasizing that this year's theme is in harmony with the growth prospects not only with the constituent countries of this regional grouping but also with their trusted external partners.
In addition to the GCC, the ASEAN countries maintain development, economic, or dialogue participation agreements with 96 countries, the most important of which are China, South Korea, Japan, Canada, the US, and India. According to many reports of international economic institutions, ASEAN can be classified as among the fastest-growing regions economically at the global and regional levels.
Source: Qatar News Agency