1、SOUTHEAST ASIACHEMICALS2024Petrochemicals-Specialty Chemicals-Oil and GasEnergy Transition-Hubs-AI-Supply ChainsSOUTHEAST ASIA CHEMICALS 2024GBR SERIESOver the past twenty years,Global Business Reports(GBR)has been reporting on various countries in Southeast Asia,with Singapore receiving our most co

2、nsistent attention.Howev-er,while researching each report,our attention was lured further into the region,something that any discerning investor has probably also experienced.ASEAN is the fourth largest economic bloc globally and hosts the third largest population in the world.For the chemi-cal indu

3、stry,ASEAN is impossible to ignore.It is thus time that GBR added to our portfolio of mostly country-specific reports a new regional format:We are delighted to introduce Southeast Asia Chemicals 2024.Taking a multi-country perspective poses the risks of over-generalizations and asterisked lines of a

4、rgument.Another challenge of scale is where do chemicals start and end?It is a long way from the oil well to the toothpaste tube and the other myriad products derived from chemicals.Do new arenas of bio-based ingredients,materials,and fuels fit under the definition of chemicals?To resolve these conu

5、ndrums,we like to think of the articles that make up this book as ex-plorations of simple questions with no simple answers.The first article is nothing more than a“Why Southeast Asia?”,where we look at the growth promise of Southeast Asia to explain why this region matters from a demand and producti

6、vity perspective.We then analyze three countries in the region:Singapore,the nation that is itself ready to move beyond traditional definitions of“chemicals”;Malaysia,a prototype oil and gas cum chemicals powerhouse that must snap out of its comfort zone through investments in higher-value products;