In the Southeast Asian market, many large Chinese technology companies have invested huge amounts of money, as well as a series of major merger and acquisition trends. What is the reason that makes Southeast Asia so popular among large Chinese companies and investors?
China’s e-commerce market is becoming saturated, and the demographic dividend has gradually disappeared. China’s large companies and investors quickly adjusted their direction and deployed overseas. Due to Southeast Asia’s demographic and geographical advantages, it became the first step for them to adjust their course. At the end of 2018, Google and Temasek jointly released a report, mentioning that Southeast Asia’s Internet economy will grow rapidly. The market size is expected to triple to US$240 billion in 2025, which is US$40 billion higher than the previous two years’ forecasts.
E-commerce has the greatest potential, with the market size doubling from US$10.9 billion in 2017 to US$23.2 billion in 2018, and is expected to increase to US$102 billion by 2025. The Southeast Asian market is very similar to the Chinese e-commerce market ten years ago. Seeing the demographic dividend of the Southeast Asian market and the huge development prospects of e-commerce, the bosses of China’s e-commerce industry can’t wait to eat this piece of “fat meat”.
From the perspective of population age structure, the current population age structure of Thailand is similar to that of my country in 2018, but the population age structure of other countries is still very young and suitable for the development of labor-intensive industries. Overall, Laos is the country with the youngest population
From a tax perspective, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia have lower tax pressure than China and have certain advantages. Generally speaking, the investment selection logic in Southeast Asia is to hedge domestic risks with low cost and high returns.
Through data mining, it is not difficult to find that Laos is a country with many advantages such as geographical location, cost and population. In particular, China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative, especially the China-Laos-Thailand railway that will be opened in 2020, will bring a wonderful moment to Laos.
Laos has a population of about 7 million. The country believes in Buddhism and the domestic social environment is good. Lao people are very gentle, kind and polite. Laos implements a socialist system and adheres to the foreign policy of “making fewer enemies and more friends”. It has established diplomatic relations with 138 countries. It joined ASEAN in 1997 and has a comprehensive strategic cooperative relationship with China. It should be particularly noted that the famous Golden Triangle in Laos has also been transformed into the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone. With the rapid development of entertainment, real estate, tourism and other industries, the development space of the special zone cannot be underestimated.