Five forces powering the Asian century
Amid short-term pressures, a handful of forces continue to drive long-term growth and regional restructuring
Countries like the Philippines are growing fast while others like China are beginning to age and accumulate wealth - spurring new financial, lifestyle and healthcare industries.
A growing, changing population(1,2)
Asia is also getting richer. Of the next 1 billion members of the global middle class, 90% will be in Asia.(4)
Rising middle class
Meanwhile, in terms of total middle class consumption, China will likely spend more than the US in 2020 and India is catching up fast (PPP, constant 2011 trilllion $ and global share).
Deepening intra-regional trade
Half of Asia’s population now lives in an urban area(6), fuelling the rise of megacities with more than 10 million inhabitants.
Multiplying megacities
Asia, with half the world’s internet users, is also a nursery of unicorns ($1 billon value start-ups)(5)
Booming internet business
India's population
2019: 1.36bn
2030: 1.5bn
Shanghai
2018: 26m
2030: 33m
Asia has the two most populous countries in the world, with India outgrowing China in the 2020s and growth strong in other parts of Asia as well.
Delhi
2018: 29m
2030: 39m(8)
China's population
2019: 1.43bn
2030: 1.46bn
Philippines population
2019: 108m;
2030: 124m(1)
Number of megacities - asia vs global(7)
By 2030, 2/3 of the global middle class are likely to be Asian(4)
Global total
2018
2025
49
40
Asia: 33
Asia: 26
Delhi and Shanghai are the world’s second and third largest cities, after Tokyo
4
5
3
2
1
Stronger trade ties
Services trade growing fast
Self-contained regional supply chains
Asia vs the US for intra-regional trade(5)
52%
41%
vs
$38.4bn
Alibaba’s Singles Day record sales total in 2019(9)
(4) Homi Kharas, The Unprecedented Expansion of the Global
Middle Class: An Update, 2017, Brookings, p13, p11, p16
Still growing - Asia’s
10-year growth could be equivalent to the US population in 2019
Sources.
(1) UN World Population Wallchart 2019
(2) UNFPA, Asia & the Pacific
(3) Worldometers, using UN data; see also UN, Population 2030
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
(6) United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects:
The 2018 Revision, p.xix
(5) McKinsey Global Institute, Asia's Future is Now, July 2019
(7) GlobalData, February 2019
(8) UN, The World’s Cities in 2018, p4
(9) Sherisse Pham, CNN Business, 12 November 2019
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