Asean’s creative economy needs clearer definitions and better data urgently

ASEAN has taken its most concrete step yet towards prioritising the creative industries.

At the 2025 Asean Summit, the bloc’s leaders adopted the Creative Economy Sustainability Framework – the region’s first shared commitment towards coordinated investment and development in gaming, film and digital content.

Before the region acts on that commitment, a fundamental question should be answered: What is the actual impact of the creative economy on the broader economy?

More than a decade ago, it was heralded as a new engine of economic growth.

In 2013, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) estimated that the world’s “orange economy” – film, music, design, gaming, publishing and craft – was worth US$4.3 trillion, or 6.1 per cent of global gross domestic product, employing about 144 million people.

That same year, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) put global trade in creative goods and services at a record US$624 billion.

Governments took notice, and the creative economy quickly became part of national development strategies.

Now, 13 years later, the creative economy is firmly established as a policy priority.

Yet, we still do not have sufficient evidence to know its impact, and if related policies are working.

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Three challenges of the creative economy

The first challenge is that there is still no agreed definition of the creative economy. Countries measure it differently.

For example, Indonesia’s definition includes culinary arts, while Thailand includes traditional medicine. International organisations take different approaches too.

The IADB’s definition consists of 45 industries; Unctad adopts a wider definition comprising 54 industries, and a further 21 industries contributing to the manufacturing of creative goods.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) uses a narrower definition of 37 industries.

Even Asean’s own Creative Economy Sustainability Framework, adopted in 2025, notes that the region still lacks baseline definitions and metrics, a reminder that measurement remains a work in progress even at the regional level.

This matters because inconsistent definitions produce inconsistent statistics.

Unctad’s 2024 Creative Economy Outlook found the creative economy’s share of GDP ranging from 0.5 to 7.3 per cent in 36 reporting countries. Such differences reflect not only economic performance, but also what each country chooses to count.

Without common definitions, comparisons across countries, and even over time, become difficult. The IADB, for its part, has not revalued the sector since 2013; the widely cited US$4.3 trillion figure is now outdated.

Measurement gaps extend beyond the size of the sector. Some sub-sectors are simply better tracked than others.

Music, for instance, benefits from streaming platforms that generate granular, real-time data. By contrast, crafts and traditional cultural expressions are far less visible.

Trade statistics generally cannot distinguish handmade goods from mass-produced products, and much of their value is created through informal markets and tourism, which official statistics struggle to capture.

The result is an uneven picture of the creative economy, with some industries measured in detail while others are consistently underestimated.

Another challenge is the distribution of impacts in society.

Most official statistics focus on aggregate indicators such as GDP or exports, but reveal little about who actually benefits. The evidence that does exist indicates a small minority capturing most of the gains.

Spotify’s “Loud & Clear” data shows that of more than 12 million artists who uploaded music to the platform in 2024, less than 0.6 per cent earned more than US$10,000 a year from it.

On YouTube, the top 10 per cent of creators took 62 per cent of advertising payments in 2025, up from 53 per cent in 2023.

Yet, few countries systematically measure median incomes or income distribution across creative occupations, so policymakers cannot tell whether growth in the creative economy is translating into broad-based opportunity.

They also do not know whether public support for the sector is money well-spent.

The US-based tracker, Good Jobs First, reviewed state-level assessments of American film tax subsidies and found a negative return on investment in each assessment. Georgia’s credit alone cost the state over US$1 billion in 2023.

Comparable independent assessments of creative-industry grants globally are less common, limiting how confidently their cost-effectiveness can be judged.

The final challenge is the changed environment due to technological advancement. Emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence are already reshaping how creative content is produced and, in some cases, replacing it.

One study found freelance job postings for writing fell 30 per cent within eight months of ChatGPT’s release. Yet, statistical frameworks have not kept pace.

Unctad’s latest framework does not classify AI-generated content as creative-economy output, and there is still no international consensus on how such activity should be measured.

As AI becomes more embedded in creative work, existing statistics risk becoming less representative of the sector they are meant to track.

These findings prompt a rethink of the creative economy. It still holds significant promise of economic growth, however.

The solution is not to abandon it, but instead strengthen the evidence behind it.

Towards greater alignment

A good starting point for Asean is to standardise definitions and update measurement methodologies.

Governments should align on clearer definitions and modernise statistical frameworks to reflect emerging technologies – Unesco’s 2025 Framework for Cultural Statistics, its first update since 2009, is one such effort.

The UK’s use of defined industry codes to separate creative activity from overlapping digital and tourism sectors offers one model of disciplined measurement.

Malaysia’s publication of South-east Asia’s first satellite cultural and creative account in 2025 shows that closing such gaps is achievable within a single budget cycle.

Governments should also expand measurements beyond headline GDP figures to include indicators such as median earnings and income distribution, giving a clearer picture of who benefits from growth.

With better data, governments can then evaluate whether public investments and incentives, such as film subsidies, are delivering meaningful returns.

The vision that human creativity could become an engine of economic growth remains compelling.

But we still do not know the creative economy’s true size, who benefits from it, or how to account for emerging technologies.

That uncertainty is not a secondary, technical matter – it determines whether policy succeeds or fails. We hope to have a clearer picture within the decade.

Both writers are from Access Partnership. Swee Cheng Wei is director of economics strategy, and Koay Jun Le is manager of economics strategy.