Maritime Logistics Sector in ASEAN: Exploring Opportunities and Addressing Key Challenges

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is a region with of the largest and fastest growing economy in the world with an average annual real growth rate of 5.3 percent between 2007 and 2015. In 2016, the combined GDP of ASEAN Member States (AMS) reached USD 2.6 trillion, making it the sixth largest economy in the world and the third largest in Asia. The region’s GDP is projected to double up to USD 4.7 trillion in 2020, with the Association becoming the fourth largest economy in the world by 2030.2 There is little doubt that the ASEAN market presents huge potentials. The region is home to more than 620 million people, and is currently enjoying a demographic dividend, in which 67.6 percent of its population in 2013 was categorised in the working age, whilst another 55 million of its population will be put into the same category in the following decade (2012 – 2023).3 Moreover, the region’s market potentials are also strengthened by the rise of its middle-class. Over the last decade, the number of the region’s population falling into this category has sky rocketed to more than 500 percent, from a mere 50 million in 2004 to more than 300 million by 201