Why aren’t the countries of South-East Asia?
It is easy to forget, now that China and India are all the rage, that until ten years ago South-East Asia was the world’s fastest-developing region, winning the sort of investor attention and breathless column inches that the two new giants now enjoy. The region has, slowly, recovered from the blight of 1997-98. It has recently had several years of strong growth and its governments’ finances have been greatly improved. Even so, after all this time the region’s five main economies — Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand — are still notable for the near-absence of companies that could truly be called world-class. The region has 570m people and had a head start in economic development over much of the rest of Asia. So why does it still have no global consumer brands of the stature of South Korea’s Samsung and LG? Where are its rising technology leaders, like Taiwan’s AU Optronics and Taiwan Semiconductor? Where are its equivalents of India’s world-conquering Tata St
