The developmental gaps in ASEAN are a well-documented phenomenon. They provide impetus for the regional integration and development agenda while simultaneously creating hurdles to progress. The increasingly turbulent global environment has further exacerbated this as the highly globalised economies of ASEAN are facing heightened risks and uncertainties. Digital Inclusion and Integration in ASEAN: A Competitiveness Analysis was written in the context of an ASEAN seeking to deepen economic integration, both within the region and with trusted partners beyond ASEAN to secure progress in development.

This volume presents the latest results of the long running ACI ASEAN Annual Competitiveness Analysis and the more recently developed ASEAN+ Digital Competitiveness Analysis. This edition of the ASEAN analysis seeks to provide a better understanding of the developmental agenda by detailing the key policies adopted by the individual AMS in the context of the strengths and weaknesses highlighted by the Competitiveness Indices in Chapters 2 and 3. This is valuable for readers seeking to understand the broad range of developmental strategies, priorities and challenges facing the diverse grouping of ASEAN as they seek deeper integration.

Through the above exercise, two key areas of in-depth research were developed and presented in Chapters 1 and 3 respectively. Chapter 1 features an overview of the ASEAN region, presenting some key quantitative indicators covering both the broader socioeconomic and digital economic aspects of ASEAN. With this background knowledge, Chapter 1 proceeds to discuss in-depth the issue of cross-border data flows. The international flows of data underpin much of modern economic activity and is critical to the inclusion and integration agenda. It has also emerged as a key point of contention in the negotiation of international agreements dealing with digital technologies and the digital economy. The case study presents some of the key properties of data, cross-border data flows and relevant policy mechanisms to aid readers in understanding the trade-offs faced by policymakers. The study then presents the various policy regimes and mechanisms in play within ASEAN to achieve the goal of enabling cross-border data flows with appropriate safeguards.

Chapter 3 explores the issue of digital inclusion by examining the role of trust in promoting the uptake of digital technologies. This chapter starts by presenting the results of the latest edition of the ASEAN+ Digital Competitiveness Analysis upon which the quantitative case study on trust is built. The results challenge the conventional wisdom that trust results in high adoption of digital technologies. It is demonstrated that economies that have low trust in digital technologies tend to have high adoption rates and competitiveness, and vice versa. This trend also has a developmental aspect as the low trust, high adoption and high competitiveness economies tend to be developed economies. One explanation explored is the role of education in this process; populations in developed economies have higher levels of digital literacy, which includes an understanding of the risks of digital technologies as well as mitigation strategies. This has interesting implications for the design of education and data protection policies in both developed and developing economies.

By TAN, Kway Guan