OUR GEOGRAPHIC COVERAGE

APAC (Japan, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, Rest of Asia-Pacific)

The Asia Pacific region is undergoing significant demographic modifications, with rapid population ageing, socioeconomic development, and a rise in the youth population. The population in the region is estimated to be 4.7 billion as of 2023, and it is expected to increase to 5.2 billion by 2050. Besides, the region comprises 67 million international migrants, of which 71% are from other nations, and 29% came from outside. Therefore, the most widespread migration in the Asia Pacific is effectively regional in nature. However, the regional growth is also based on economic development, which has increased by 0.3% to 5.1% in 2025. Additionally, the 2026 growth forecast is also being revised by 0.1% points, with a focus on lowered trade uncertainties and the different trade deals. Moreover, China, India, Japan, Australia, and Malaysia are emerging and are predicted to witness growth in the upcoming years.

China

China is the world’s second-largest economy, with gross national income amounting to USD 13,390 in 2023. This is further projected to surpass the World Bank’s upper-income threshold of USD 14,006 within 10 years. The country accounts for 5.0% growth in its gross domestic product (GDP) as of 2024. Despite a developing property sector, 4.5% growth has been predicted, representing a significant portion of the nation’s GDP.

Government Policies and Reforms

China’s government has readily prioritized technology self-reliance, clean energy, and industrial upgradation through different policy frameworks. Clean-energy technologies significantly contributed to over 10% of the country's economic growth as of 2024, with an investment worth 13.6 trillion yuan (USD 1.9 trillion). This sector has driven a quarter of the nation’s GDP growth and overtook real estate sales in value.

The Government of China has generously allocated 55% of the rural revitalization fund to industrial development and provided support for employment, education, and infrastructure. Besides, the country has supported the South-South Cooperation and put forward strategies, such as the Global Development Initiative (GDI) and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), contributing to international sustainability and development efforts.

The research and development (R&D) spending in China readily surged by 2.4% in inflation-based terms as of 2023. Based on this, domestic business-based R&D outpaced other industries, growing at 2.7% and accounting for 74% of the overall GDP spending. Likewise, R&D in governmental institutions upsurged by 2.5%, and meanwhile, the higher education system observed a modest growth of 1.7%.

Technology and Innovation

China is focused on technology and science funding as the centralized growth driver for initiating advancements. The country’s Two Sessions, the yearly meeting of the National People's Congress (NPC), has outlined a suitable rise in technology and science funding budget of CNY 371 billion in March 2024, denoting a 10% increase from 2023. With this fund provision, the basic research budget reached CNY 98 billion as of 2024. Overall, this readily aligns with the 14th Five‑Year Plan, targeting breakthroughs in green technologies, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and semiconductors.

China is regarded as the world’s largest economy for environmental technology products, rising at an average yearly rate of 12.8%. As of 2022, the nation’s environmental protection industry significantly generated USD 329 billion in operational income, which accounted for 1.8% of GDP and employed more than 3.2 million people. Furthermore, based on administrative regulations, the country achieved a sewage treatment rate of over 95% in county-based cities, along with a recycled water utilization rate of more than 25%. These initiatives have created expansion opportunities for international organizations to explore public and private partnerships.

International Trade and Investment

China’s global trade and investment policies have significantly prioritized stabilizing exports, making advancements across high-tech sectors, and attracting foreign capital. The World Trade Organization denotes that the country, with its 1.3 billion people, witnessed a growth in its economy at an average of 9% every year for the past 4 decades. Therefore, the country makes up 23% of the overall e-commerce trade, in comparison to advanced economies accounting for 75% of the total. The country has successfully tripled its world trade share and reduced its poverty rate from 36% to less than 1%.

The foreign direct investment (FDI) flow in China stood at USD 163.3 billion in 2023, with increased focus on gross capital inflows. However, due to Netherlands-based investments, the FDI flow in the country jumped 306.5% in 2022 and 19.2% as of 2023. Additionally, the utilized FDI from the U.S. surged by 35.4% in 2023, thereby denoting a significant transformation. By the end of 2023, the FDI for high-tech industries grew at an average yearly rate of 15%, currently representing 37% of overall inflows. This significantly underscores the importance of international investments’ participation for making the country an innovative-fueled economy.

India

India is the fifth-largest economy in the world, demonstrating suitable growth, which is fueled by consumer, infrastructure, energy, healthcare, and technology demand. The country’s GDP is likely to grow by 7.8%, and by the end of 2030, the nation is set to emerge as the world’s third-largest economy with an expected GDP amounting to USD 7.3 trillion. Besides, the actual GDP, which significantly measures the country’s overall output after diminishing inflation effects, increased by 6.5% between 2024 and 2025. For the financial year 2025 and 2026, this GDP is predicted to be approximately ₹47.8 lakh crore, in comparison to ₹44.4 lakh crore between 2024 and 2025, depicting an outstanding growth of 7.8%.

Healthcare Industry

The healthcare sector is regarded as India’s largest sector, both in terms of employment and revenue. The sector comprises medical equipment, health insurance, medical tourism, telemedicine, outsourcing, clinical trials, medical devices, and hospitals. The domestic public expense on the industry is projected to account for 1.9% of GDP in 2026, in comparison to 2.5% as of 2025. Besides, the industry is continuously observing unprecedented advancement with private and public equity investments increasing to Rs. 4,900 crore (USD 572 million) across 33 deals. By the end of 2025, the company accomplished 3 million additional hospital beds to reach the target of 3 beds per 1,000 people, along with 2.4 million nurses and 1.5 million doctors to cater to the growing industrial demand.

The healthcare workforce in India has already upsurged by 6 million as of 2024. However, this only demonstrates the beginning since the industry is anticipated to observe suitable growth, with more than 6.3 million additional employment opportunities, which are expected by the end of 2030. The overall industry was worth Rs. 31,87,668 crore (USD 372 billion) in 2023, which increased to Rs. 54,67,022 crore (USD 638 billion) in 2025, denoting a growth ranging between 17.5% and 22.5%. The healthcare spending in the country caters to 3.3% of the national GDP as of 2022, and is further expected to increase by 5% by the end of 2030, thus reflecting the industry’s increasing role in the overall economy.

Governmental Spending on Healthcare

The share of Government Health Expenditure (GHE) in India denoted an increase in its GDP from 1.1% to 1.8% as of 2022, denoting a significant rise over the years. In terms of the General Government Expenditure (GGE), the GDP has surged from 3.9% to 6.1% in the same year. This particular growth has effectively highlighted the government’s deliberate commitment to strengthening public healthcare services, especially in response to limitations posed by health disorders. In the case of per capita terms, GHE has tripled, ranging from Rs. 1,108 to Rs. 3,169, indicating a substantial increase in healthcare investments and ensuring that generous resources are readily available per person for healthcare services. Notably, there has been a sharp rise in health spending, with a 37% increase, thus marking the government’s active approach to administering healthcare challenges.

Japan

Japan’s economy is currently the fourth-largest with USD 4.0 trillion as GDP in 2024 and USD 32,487.1 as GDP per capita. In addition, the annual GDP growth accounts for 0.1%, along with 2.6% as the total unemployment rate, and 2.7% as inflation in consumer prices within the same year. Besides, as of 2023, 100% of the population has access to electricity, with 7.8% of carbon dioxide emissions in 2024. The yearly freshwater withdrawals cater to 19% of internal resources since 2022, followed by 12.6% of electricity production from renewable sources excluding hydroelectricity. Overall, the country heavily invests in artificial intelligence and digitalized innovation, which are supported by governmental programs under the Society 5.0 initiative.

Governmental Funding and Strategies

Japan is gearing towards achieving carbon neutrality by the end of 2050, and regarding this, METI has readily established a Green Innovation Fund at the 2 trillion-yen level under the Tertiary Supplementary Budget. Based on this fund, the government is poised to offer continuous support to organizations that are committed to achieving ambitious targets by 2030. This includes social implementation, demonstration, and research and development for the upcoming 10 years. METI’s support is focused on areas wherein policy effects are long-term and significant, and support is crucial for successful public implementation.

In Japan, plans have been readily formulated within the Basic Policy or the Green Growth Strategy for achieving green sustainability. Based on this formulation, the scale of each project is predicted to be more than 20 billion yen, which is considered the average scale of traditional R&D projects. Companies and non-profit organizations are the main implementers for making businesses capable of executing the overall process of public implementation. In addition, projects are required to comprise fundamental and advanced R&D elements, thereby making them worthy of government commissioning.

Natural Resources and Energy

Japan’s government approved the 7th Strategic Energy Plan (SEP), demonstrating the country’s energy policies. This approach has set excessively ambitious shares for domestic nuclear power in electricity generation, projected to account for 20% to 22% by 2030 and a further 20% by 2040. In March 2025, there were a total of 36 nuclear reactors in the country, with an overall capacity of 37 GW. Of these reactors, 33 are considered existing and 3 are under construction, and meanwhile, 26 reactors are in the decommissioning process.

Furthermore, Japan’s 6th Strategic Energy Plan, along with the Green Transformation (GX) Decarbonization Power Supply Bill, targeted a surge in the non-fossil fuel generation sources to 59% by the end of 2030 in comparison to 31% as of 2022. Regional policies have targeted an increase in renewable generation sources, including biomass, geothermal, hydropower, wind, and solar from 26% in 2022 to 36%-38% in 2030, along with an upsurge in nuclear generation from 5% in 2022 to 20%-22% by the end of the same year. These policies can also expand ammonia and hydrogen utilization in coal co-fired and natural gas power generation, particularly in innovative carbon storage and capture technological development.

Aerospace, Marine, and Defense

Japan is focused on strengthening its defense capability by providing resources intensively and flexibly and without adhering to the current human resource and budget allocation. Under the Defense-Strengthening Acceleration Package, the expenditure amounted to ¥5.8 trillion, which increased to ¥355.9 billion, denoting a 6.5% rise. Material expenses are worth ¥3.8 trillion, which also surged to ¥370 billion, denoting a 10.7% increase from the initial budget. Besides, for R&D spending, ¥291.1 billion has been procured by achieving necessary expenses for projects, including stand-off defense enhancement and bolstering investments for adopting cutting-edge technologies. For this reason, there has been an increase in the budget, amounting to ¥79.6 billion, which is a 37.6% increase, thus suitable for contract-based expenses.

The yearly 2022 budget in the domestic industry amounted to ¥5.1 trillion, further constituting a ¥55.3 billion or 1.1% increase from the previous year. This is expected to continue for the upcoming 10 years as part of the trend in increasing expenses. Besides, futuristic obligations for the newest defense contracts are stagnant during the timeline of the present MTDP. Eventually, this has resulted in an effective increase in investments, amounting to ¥2.4 trillion. However, to ensure continuation with such investments, the SDF in Japan is focused on acquiring and strengthening capabilities in domains, including electromagnetic spectrum, cyberspace, and space, by tactically allocating resources and readily leveraging localized technology and science.

Automotive and Mobility

Japan is one of the rarest instances of an innovative economy, wherein small-sized models for both ICE and electric vehicles cater to a massive customer base, which is motivated by densely populated cities and with standard policy support. In this regard, almost 60% of overall ICE sales in the country were for small models, and more than half were for electric sales. Additionally, two electric cars from Mitsubishi and Nissan Sakura eK-X, along with the Kei category, accounted for almost 50% of the domestic electric car sales alone. Both of these have been priced between JPY 2.3 million and JPY 3 million. However, this is considered expensive in comparison to best-selling small ICE cars, such as Daihatsu Move, Suzuki Spacia, Daihatsu Tanto, Daihatsu Hijet, and Honda N Box, with prices ranging between USD 13,000 and USD 18,000.

Australia

Australia is one of the high-income economies of the Asia Pacific that has significantly maintained steady growth. Uplifted by infrastructure, healthcare, technology, and energy. The country’s economic growth has been resilient, despite a slow growth accounting of 1.4% as of 2024. In previous years, the GDP growth was 3.7% in 2022, followed by 2.1% in 2023, owing to limitations in customer demand, along with a decline in real household disposable incomes, highly driven by increased mortgage and inflation interest rates. Strong public investment for national defense, education, health, and transport, as well as resilient private investment, and elevated net migration, are the main drivers for economic development.

Industry Support

The mining industry in Australia has successfully underpinned high living standards as the country’s largest exporter, employer, and company taxpayer. Miners in the country procured over USD 161 billion worth of services and goods from almost 63,700 suppliers globally between 2023 and 2024. Lithium as a mineral amount to USD 18.8 billion in export valuation, along with 8,440 kt in terms of resources and 95 kt for production. Simultaneously, rare earths comprise 1 operating mine in the country, with 6.2 million tons of resources and 0.02 million tons of production. Likewise, the export valuation of black coal is worth USD 103.2 billion, comprising 72,487 million tons of resources and 428 million tons of production. Meanwhile, USD 4.6 billion is the export value of nickel, 24.6 million tons of resources, and 0.15 million tons of production, thereby proliferating the industry’s growth in the country.

The agriculture sector in the country accounts for 55% of regional land utilization, which includes 426 million hectares and excludes timber production. Besides, 74% of water consumption is readily available, with 9,981 gigalitres utilized by agriculture in 2022. The sector also caters to 10.8% of goods and services exports, amounting to USD 71.5 billion between 2023 and 2024, while 2.4% accounts for value-added GDP within the same duration. Moreover, 2.2% of national employment and 5.9% of rural employment have led to 315,600 people within the same timeframe, thereby creating a positive outlook for the overall industry.

The manufacturing industry in Australia is extremely diversified, with its outputs spanning across the fundamental building blocks of modernized society. These include machinery, food products, chemicals, building materials, and metals, which are modernized through highly advanced and specialized products, such as precision cutting tools, biomedical sensors, and solar cells. The modern manufacturing initiative is worth USD 1.3 billion, USD 107.2 million for the supply chain resilience initiative, and USD 52.8 million for the manufacturing modernization funding. All these investments are responsible for ensuring transformation in manufacturing businesses, assisting the country in addressing barriers, and delivering rapid action to unlock business investment.

Malaysia

Malaysia is experiencing sustained growth, readily supported by structural reforms, investment, and trade facilities. The country’s robust 5.2% GDP growth in the third quarter of 2025 has placed it firmly on track to achievement, along with growth target of 4.0% to 4.8%. In addition, there has been an expansion in its economy, fueled by strong performances across all industries. Besides, the domestic demand is the ultimate growth driver, effectively registering at 5.8% and has been underpinned by strong household expenditure, which is supported by a suitable labor industry and contained inflation. Furthermore, for the first 9 months in 2025, the country’s economy extended by 4.7%, thereby underscoring the nation’s strong fundamentals and resilience in overcoming international risks.

Technology and Digital Services

The digitalized economy is one of Malaysia’s notable economic pillars, readily contributing 23% of its GDP. However, the usual challenge for this fast-developing economy lies in the governmental aspect of keeping up with the rapidly evolving technology for creating lasting and sound regulations and policies. Besides, the National Cyber Security Agency (NACSA) significantly serves as the country’s primary authority for enforcing and developing national cybersecurity regulations. In 2024, the government effectively enacted the Cyber Security Bill 2024 to successfully establish a robust regulatory framework to safeguard the country’s essential infrastructure against emerging cyber challenges.

In Malaysia, 92% of urban-based households have suitable accessibility to the internet, and meanwhile only 68% of rural households have internet facilities. Parallelly, the government has significantly unveiled the Malaysia Artificial Intelligence Nexus 2024 (MY AI NEXUS), a program that readily signals the country’s aspiration to emerge as the ultimate leader in artificial intelligence technology by promoting opportunities for research, development, and studies, along with the development of artificial intelligence faculties. This particular technology has proactively stimulated the growth of other sub-industries, including enhanced cybersecurity, quantum computing, and advanced computing.

Rest of Asia-Pacific

The Asia-Pacific region encompasses many of the world’s fastest-growing economies. Countries such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand have all experienced notable economic development in recent years. In the discussion that follows, we will focus on the key drivers behind this growth and highlight significant trends and advancements shaping these nations’ progress.

Bangladesh

Bangladesh has continued to demonstrate strong economic momentum in recent years, building on its earlier rapid expansion. The nation benefits from a growing labor force, an increasingly diversified manufacturing base, particularly in textiles and garments, and government initiatives aimed at strengthening infrastructure and attracting foreign investment. Its strategic location between India and China further enhances its role as a regional trade hub. The country’s GDP accounts for 4.2% as of 2024, along with a 44.1% labor force participation rate, and 74.6 years as life expectancy at birth as of 2023.

Bhutan

Bhutan has continued to leverage its abundant hydropower resources as a cornerstone of economic growth, with electricity exports to India accounting for almost 70% of the overall 1,500 MW of hydropower presently installed and exported to India. Hydropower contributes nearly 45% of the revenue and remains the country’s largest source of foreign exchange earnings. Alongside energy, Bhutan’s tourism sector has rebounded strongly after the pandemic, supported by the government’s High-Value and Low-Impact Tourism Policy.

New Zealand

New Zealand’s economy continues to benefit from its thriving tourism and agriculture sectors. Tourism has rebounded strongly after the pandemic, with international visitor spending reaching NZD 12.2 billion in 2024, up from NZD 10.2 billion in 2023, and arrivals surpassing 3.4 million visitors. The country’s natural landscapes, adventure tourism, and Māori cultural experiences remain key attractions. Agriculture also plays a vital role, with the provision of export facilities for wool, meat, and dairy products.

Philippines

Remittances from overseas Filipino workers remain a cornerstone of the Philippines’ economy, providing resilience amid global challenges. Regarding this, personal remittances from overseas Filipinos (OFs) constituted the latest record of USD 3.6 billion in 2023, denoting a rise by 3.9% from USD 3.5 billion as of 2022. This particular growth is highly driven by an increase in remittances from sea and land-based workers with less than 1 year of contract, along with land-based workers with more than 1 year of contract.

Singapore

Singapore remains one of the Asia Pacific’s most advanced economies, with growth supported by trade, innovation, and a pro‑business environment. The country’s economy was at 0.1% on a quarter-on-quarter seasonally-adjusted basis within the first quarter of 2024. Besides, positioned at the crossroads of global shipping routes, Singapore’s port handled more than 622.6 million tons of cargo along with 40.9 million tons in 2024, maintaining its role as one of the busiest globally, and significantly reaching a record of 54.9 million tons. Moreover, the nation actively participates in agreements such as RCEP and ASEAN FTA, further strengthening its trade integration.

South Korea

South Korea continues to thrive as one of the Asia Pacific’s most advanced economies, driven by innovation and global competitiveness. Technology giants such as Samsung and LG anchor their export-oriented economy, with electronics, automobiles, and steel remaining key contributors. Besides, the country is considered the 8th largest exporter, with exports readily accounting for 40% of the GDP. Automobiles and semiconductors, with the inclusion of auto parts, are regarded as the two most crucial export products, significantly catering to 12% and 20% of the country’s overall exports, respectively. Other notable export products include flat products of steel or iron, consumer electronics, parts and vessels, and petrochemical products.

Thailand

Thailand’s economy continues to grow, with tourism remaining a cornerstone of national development. There has been a gradual expansion in the country, highly supported by a slight optimization and external demand for private consumption. Additionally, the private consumption index turned into an optimistic outlook, fueled by fiscal stimulus through the THB 10,000 cash transfer, particularly across low-income households, and readily eased concerns regarding recent floods. Meanwhile, there has been an extension in exports by 9.6% year-on-year (YoY), while manufacturing exports witnessed robust growth over the past 2 months, highly propelled by electronics exports, especially the rebound in demand for hard disk drives.

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