ASEAN launches Investment Report 2020-2021: Investing in Industry 4.0

Bandar Seri Begawan, 8 September 2021 – Today, the “ASEAN Investment Report 2020-2021: Investing in Industry 4.0” was launched during the Virtual Meeting of the ASEAN Economic Ministers – 24^th ASEAN Investment Area Council (AEM – 24^th AIAC) Meeting.

 Foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into ASEAN fell by 25% to US$137 billion from an all-time high of US$ 182 billion in 2019 given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the decline, ASEAN remained an attractive investment destination, with its share of global FDI rising from 11.9% in 2019 to 13.7% in 2020.

 In November 2020, ASEAN and its five Free Trade Agreement (FTA) partners signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement, which is expected to further boost FDI and enhance economic integration in the economic bloc that constitutes about 15% of global FDI stock and more than 33% of global FDI flows in 2020.

This year’s report features FDI’s role in the region’s Industry 4.0 transformation and how Member States are adopting Industry 4.0 technologies to step up industrialisation and economic development. It also provides policy options to attract FDI in supporting the digital transformation of ASEAN, including in setting the right strategic direction and addressing the bottlenecks that impede the transformation.

 The ASEAN Investment Report is prepared under a technical cooperation agreement between the ASEAN Secretariat and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), with inputs from members of the ASEAN Coordinating Committee on Investment (CCI) and supported by the ASEAN-Australia Development Cooperation Program Phase II (AADCP II).

The report can be downloaded at:

• AIR 2020 - 2021 [PDF, 6.2 MB]

• http://investasean.asean.org/files/upload/ASEAN Investment Report 2020-2021.pdf

• https://unctad.org/webflyer/asean-investment-report-2021

Source: ASEAN Secretariat