Southeast Asia Chemical Week Report 2023

Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and The Philippines are all competing for foreign direct investment (FDI) in the chemicals sector. The region would become more competitive to international investors if it learned to act more as one – for instance, by developing upstream-to-downstream regional value chains and by focusing on complementary differentiating points, rather than competing ones. Investments in any ASEAN nation can benefit the entire region if these are guided to an equal extent by consid- erations of differentiation and integration. This would lead to the development of a complete and self-sustaining regional ecosystem.