(Phnom Penh): Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen said that ASEAN is projected to become the world’s fourth-largest economy by 2030, and emphasised that the presence of new member states has not caused any economic decline within the bloc.

Samdech Techo delivered his policy speech at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta, on Monday (May 5) to commemorate the 26th anniversary of Cambodia’s membership in ASEAN.

“I would like to clarify certain misconceptions suggesting that Cambodia or other newly member states with smaller economies have slowed down ASEAN’s progress. In reality, the newly members have not hindered ASEAN’s development, nor have they depended excessively on or taken undue advantage of the earlier members. Allow me to present some concrete figures: when ASEAN was founded in 1967, the region’s combined GDP stood at just USD 24 billion. By 2024, the GDP of ASEAN’s ten member states had grown to USD 3.8 trillion, making ASEAN the fifth-largest economy in the world—and it is poised to become the fourth-largest by 2030,” Samdech Techo underscored.

Samdech Techo further noted that ASEAN’s trade volume has reached USD 3.5 trillion, nearly equal to its total GDP, with 21.5 percent of this trade occurring within the bloc. ASEAN’s total investment volume has reached USD 229.8 billion, of which 9.5 percent is intra-ASEAN investment.

He emphasised that these figures clearly demonstrate that ASEAN’s economy has not regressed due to new membership. On the contrary, both trade and investment have grown steadily, with intra-ASEAN trade and investment seeing continual expansion.

On the occasion, the Senate president added that each country retains full ownership of its own economy, meaning that ASEAN’s economic “pie” has not been diminished or divided by newer members. Instead, the region’s economic pie has grown larger, allowing all member states to benefit from increased economic scale, trade, and investment.
=FRESH NEWS