This edition of the Southeast Asian Economic Outlook examines medium-term growth prospects, recent macroeconomic policy challenges, and structural challenges including human capital, infrastructure and SME development.

The Economic Outlook for Southeast Asia, China and India is an annual publication on Asia’s regional economic growth, development and regional integration process.

This book contains a medium-term (five-year) economic outlook for Southeast Asia, China and India.

This edition of the Southeast Asian Economic Outlook examines medium-term growth prospects, recent macroeconomic policy challenges, and structural challenges including human capital, infrastructure and SME development.

This report analyzes how closer regional connectivity and economic integration between South Asia and Southeast Asia can benefit both regions, with a focus on the role played by infrastructure and public policies in facilitating this process. It examines major developments in South Asian–Southeast Asian trade and investment, economic cooperation, the role of economic corridors, and regional cooperation initiatives. In particular, it identifies significant opportunities for strengthening these integration efforts as a result of the recent opening up of Myanmar in political, economic, and financial terms. This is particularly the case for land-based transportation—highways and railroads—and energy trading. The report’s focus is on connectivity in a broad sense, covering both hardware and software, including investment in infrastructure, energy trading, trade facilitation, investment financing, and support for national and regional policies.

The annual Economic Outlook for Southeast Asia, China and India examines Asia’s regional economic growth, development and regional integration process.

Carried out in consultation with officials and researchers from across the region, Towards Green Growth in Southeast Asia provides a framework for regional leaders to design their own solutions to move their countries towards green growth.

Thailand’s education system stands at a crossroads. Significant investment has widened access to education and the country performs relatively well in international assessments compared with its peers.

This book examines China’s relations with its weak peripheral states through the theoretical lens of structural power and structural violence. China’s foreign policy concepts toward its weak neighbouring states, such as the ‘One Belt, One Road’ strategy, are premised on the assumption that economic exchange and a commitment to common development are the most effective means of ensuring stability on its borders. This book, however, argues that China’s overreliance on economic exchange as the basis for its bilateral relations contains inherently self-defeating qualities that have contributed and can further contribute to instability and insecurity within China’s periphery. Unequal economic exchange between China and its weak neighbours results in Chinese influence over the state’s domestic institutions, what this book refers to as ‘structural power’. Chinese structural power, in turn, can undermine the state’s development, contribute to social unrest, and exacerbate existing state/society tensions—what this book refers to as ‘structural violence’. For China, such outcomes lead to instability within its peripheral environment and raise its vulnerability to security threats stemming from nationalism, separatism, terrorism, transnational organised crime, and drug trafficking, among others. This book explores the causality between China’s economically-reliant foreign policy and insecurity in its weak peripheral states and considers the implications for China’s security environment and foreign policy. This book will be of much interest to students of Chinese politics, Asian security studies, international political economy and IR in general.

This assessment shows that Myanmar’s success in achieving growth will depend on developing the institutional/social capital necessary for economic/financial stability, to ensure the rule of law, to achieve environmentally sustainable development, and creating an enabling private sector environment.