SINGAPORE: According to a recent survey from finance giant HSBC, Singaporean businesses have the most confidence among their peers in Southeast Asia when it comes to growth and expansion plans.
The survey shows that while businesses in the region are looking forward to growth overall, Singaporean businesses lead the pack with 94 per cent expressing confidence about growth, followed closely by Thailand (91 per cent).
Vietnam (87 per cent), Indonesia (86 per cent), Malaysia (84 per cent), and the Philippines (80 per cent) round out the top six in the region.
HSBC took into account 600 responses from companies with yearly revenues of at least US$150 million from the top six markets in Southeast Asia.
Nearly three-quarters (74 per cent) of the firms surveyed say they intend to invest more within the ASEAN region itself, while over three-fifths (61 per cent) say they plan to expand beyond Southeast Asia.
Nevertheless, ASEAN businesses said macroeconomic uncertainty is the largest barrier (34 per cent) to their expansion plans. Following this are local technological capabilities (30 per cent), supply chain challenges (28 per cent), competition (28 per cent), and rapidly changing regulations/policies (25 per cent), reported Singapore Business Review on Monday (Apr 1).
HSBC said on March 28 that “digitalising operations” is the number one business priority (42 per cent) among the companies it surveyed, followed by “growth in Southeast Asia” (40 per cent) and “research and development” (37 per cent).
Moreover, almost two-thirds of businesses (65 per cent) say that they plan to increase their investment in digitalisation, which would aid in capturing “growth in the booming digital economy.”
Last week, the banking giant launched its US$1 billion ASEAN Growth Fund to help scale up digital platform players in the region.
The region’s digital economy was worth US$218 billion last year and is expected to grow to US$600 billion by the end of the decade, making it one of the fastest-growing in the world.
“Like so many other internationally-minded businesses, we are excited about ASEAN’s booming digital economy.
With a working population that is digitally native, increasing in size, and poised to consume more goods and services, especially on e-commerce, ASEAN has so much potential for growth,” said Amanda Murphy, the Head of Commercial Banking for South and Southeast Asia at HSBC.
“We are delighted to launch our first-of-its-kind ASEAN Growth Fund and work with digital companies as they expand in the region and beyond,” she added. /TISG
Read also: HSBC reimburses $10K to woman after she reports unauthorised limit change and fund transfer