Lakan Araw, Studied Filipino Language Arts (Graduated 2025), Updated 4y. QUORA
[ From all the articles I’ve written regarding SE Asian economics, here’s how I will arrange the top 5 SE Asian countries that I think will have the most productivity in the next 20 years ]
- Viet Nam
- Indonesia
- Philippines
- Laos
- Myanmar
- Viet Nam has been busy at work lately in the past few years. They focus mainly on manufacturing and exports. The country started off late, but it has picked up its pace very quickly compared to its other neighbors, and its economy is rapidly transforming.
- Indonesia already has quite a big industry and it’s still growing. Around 2050, it should already be up there in the top 10 biggest economies globally. Quite a lot of products have been rolling out of the country in the past decade, and a lot more companies have started to establish their businesses there, so, that’s always good news because it encourages more investments and can kick-start local businesses into the global market.
- The Philippine government for the past few years has worked on constructing more buildings and cleaning up beaches/islands in an attempt to gain more tourism that the country has been falling short of. This way, it opens up a stronger sector for investments in the country, and hopefully, they can work more on improving the other industries that contribute to the country’s total GDP. Sure corruption still runs within the country, but then again, the 1st world countries today started off as emerging economies, and they all had to face their own problems to reach a highly developed status. Poverty and Corruption just happens to be the Philippines ’ main issues that they have to continue to work on.
- I have high hopes for Laos. It has the youngest population in the Asian continent, so it has huge potential awaiting ahead. Not only that, Laos is a democratic country that uses some communist ideologies that are fixed into their governmental system. With strong and emerging countries such as China and Vietnam, perhaps we can stop throwing the concept of communism out ENTIRELY. Sure it has some weaknesses, but this type of government still has its strengths and benefits.
- Even though some answers on here have written off Myanmar as being a doomed country- I actually think otherwise. Myanmar has a lot of potentials and it’s one of the fastest-growing countries in Asia. With the younger population calling for a reformation of laws and government, this could mean a new start and faster growth for Myanmar’s economy. Of course, the coup has still been going on for a while now, but if democracy can be introduced to the country, and if the state can be lifted of military oppression, then there is light at the end of the tunnel for them.
-Okay, so the countries in SE Asia that have the darkest futures? There’s not really a “dark future” per se, at least for the countries of SE Asia, but there are some weak points that are stopping them from growing at a faster rate than their potential.
1: Brunei
Im pretty sure other answers have mentioned this, but Brunei became a rich country because it depended on its oil resources, but the Earth does not have an infinite amount of fossil fuels to keep the world going, Brunei might already know about this, but I don’t see them making an attempt to research renewable resources, or moving their economy to a different industry. This could end up in a disaster.
2:Thailand
I have mentioned a few times in some of my articles that Thailand has been disordered lately. Several coups have plagued the country’s history, its economy has been stagnant, it has some high debt to pay, the monarchy is close to collapsing, and they seem to have been stuck in the middle-income trap for quite some time now. They had a fast rise in economic development and industrialization, but only time will tell if they can escape it. Many of the most advanced countries in Asia were able to do it. And so I still have a lot of hopes for the Thai economy, but until they can change their course of development, they’d stay here on my list for now.
3:Timor Leste
Timor Leste is still a fairly new country, but it has struggled in the past few years to join ASEAN, with many of the SE Asian countries wondering if the addition of Timor would be a plus or minus to the region’s growth. I have many thoughts on Timor Leste, I’m hoping for the best for them, but their future seems really shaky and unsure since they are attempting to become more known, they had a crisis in 1999, with pro-Indonesia militia groups who were attempting to completely wipe out the East Timorese population. Timor is still recovering, but so far, their future is uncertain.
Edit:
-The other countries I did not mention- Cambodia, Malaysia, and Singapore weren’t on my list because from graphs and charts that I have gathered, their countries seem to move at a steady pace. Singapore is already a pretty advanced country, however, like many well-developed countries, they have the disadvantage of slowing down in productiveness. Malaysia can keep growing, but they need to keep that momentum going and find different sources to trade in the global market. As for Cambodia, their GDP growth has been on par with Laos and Myanmar. I had to weigh out which 2 of the 3 will be on the list, so I had to base it off their growth, age of the majority of the population, their activeness in the economic and trade sector, and who’s government took the more effective approach to building their country’s foundation for future progress. In the end, it was Myanmar and Laos that made it on my list.
-So that was my answer for this question, you may not agree with it, but I took a more different approach in seeing which Southeast Asian countries will have a lot more productivity and growth within the next 20 years.
-Thanks for reading, click my profile if you want to read more related topics
Thank you.
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