Eight ways Asean consumer habits will change by 2030

WHILE Covid-19 will cause a significant economic impact with potential gross domestic product (GDP) contractions in 2020 and likely spilling over to 2021, the long-term fundamentals of the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) member states are on the cusp of a tremendous leap forward in socio-economic progress. Over the next decade, the region will be the world's fourth largest economy, with a US$4 trillion consumer market. While each of the 10 member states will evolve differently, all of them will offer abundant opportunities for growth.

The Future of Consumption in Fast-Growth Consumer Markets, a project in collaboration with Bain & Company, focuses on the emerging markets that comprise more than 40 per cent of the world's population. After studying China in 2017, India in 2018, for 2019 to 2020 it turned its attention to Asean.

For now, the Asean region is in the throes of the health, humanitarian and economic crisis resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic. A majority of Asean chief executive officers (CEOs) surveyed by Bain in April predicted that Covid-related restrictions will last through the third and fourth quarter of 2020, with economic recovery in mid-2021.