Welcome to the first edition of Southeast Asia Chemicals, a comprehensive digital report through which we have sought to cover an undeniably large yet little-emphasized spot on the chemical world map. After almost a decade of successfully reporting out of Singapore, the region’s most preeminent chemical hub, we turned our attention to the wider region and its individual countries. In a few words, Southeast Asia Chemicals 2023 is an introductory take on Southeast Asia’s chemical industry, with a view to providing a closer understanding of the rising significance of the region as one of the largest and fastest-growing markets in the world, but also of the different markets it consists of.

The report first provides a horizontal analysis of the themes that span the chemical sector, including regionalized investments, the weight of China’s economy on Southeast Asian consuming and producing markets, drivers for the fastest-growing bio-segments (personal care, plastics, fertilizers), and the ways in which the energy transition plays out in the fossil-fuel dependent region. In parallel, our reporters also conducted a vertical analysis, breaking down the value chain into petrochemicals, specialty chemicals, oleochemicals, and agrochemicals, as well as the SEA bloc into its constituting countries.

For this first report, we chose to delve into Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia, the first distinguished as an all-around favorable investment destination that must work harder to bring out its unique differentiators; the second going through a process of redesigning its economic growth, underlined by a significant political change; and the third juggling between economic protectionism and liberalism, somewhat precariously. In each country, the chemical industry plays a central part in its economy, just as each country plays a unique role in SEA’s chemical and manufacturing sector. Because of this, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia, as different as they are, presented themselves as excellent case studies for an accurate representation of the region and its chemical industry.

We would like to thank the 50+ executives from Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Jakarta that met with our team and shared with us their opinions about their businesses and their countries. As always, we take pride in basing our research on first-hand insights from industry leaders – this is key to producing original, informative, and accurate content. It has been a pleasure to learn more about this fascinating region, and we hope our readers will also learn something new in the coming pages.

Enjoy the read,