SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Southeast Asia’s internet economy is expected to be worth $330 billion by 2025, though this a downgrade from a previous forecast due to economic uncertainty and more pressure on tech companies to make a profit, an industry report said on Thursday.
The annual report, by Alphabet’s Google, Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings and global business consultants Bain & Company, trimmed its forecast for 2025 from $363 billion in last year’s report.
“Amidst global macroeconomic headwinds, reduced disposable income, sky-rocketing prices, and lower product availability, there is tapering of demand from Southeast Asia consumers,” the trio said in a joint release.
The region of 11 countries is one of the world’s fastest growing internet markets, due to a young population, widespread smartphone usage and urbanisation, and a growing middle class.
The report, which covers Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines, is still upbeat on this year and sees the internet economy growing 20% to $200 billion, three years earlier than anticipated in an inaugural report in 2016.
All six countries are expected to post double-digit growth between now and 2025, with Vietnam having the fastest growing digital economy this year at 28%.
Indonesia, the region’s most populous nation, saw its digital economy grow 22% to $77 billion this year, contributing to about 40% of Southeast Asia’s total online spending.
On the tech investment front, while early-stage deals are continuing with strong momentum, late-stage deals are seeing “more pronounced dips” and a pause in plans to go public.
Global investors are getting increasingly cautious amid rising interest rates and plummeting stock valuations, the report said, with initial public offering prospects set to grind to a near halt for the next 12 to 18 months.
The digital financial services sector is expected to overtake e-commerce to become the region’s top investment sector, with payments taking up the majority share of the deals.
In the first half of 2022, the sector saw a record funding of around $4 billion.
Meanwhile, Vietnam, Indonesia and Philippines are likely to attract more investors in the longer-term, the report said.
“Universally investors generally expect deal activity to recover from 2024 onwards,” said Fock Wai Hoong, Deputy Head of Technology & Consumer and Southeast Asia at Temasek.
Venture capitalists had $15 billion on hand to sustain deals at year-end 2021, the report said.
(Reporting by Chen Lin in Singapore; Editing by Ed Davies)
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales in August fell to their lowest level since January 2022 as sales in the primary metal and petroleum and coal product subsectors fell.
The agency says manufacturing sales fell 1.3 per cent to $69.4 billion in August, after rising 1.1 per cent in July.
The drop came as sales in the primary metal subsector dropped 6.4 per cent to $5.3 billion in August, on lower prices and lower volumes.
Sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector fell 3.7 per cent to $7.8 billion in August on lower prices.
Meanwhile, sales of aerospace products and parts rose 7.3 per cent to $2.7 billion in August and wood product sales increased 3.8 per cent to $3.1 billion.
Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.8 per cent in August.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.
