Foreign direct investment into the eleven ASEAN markets totalled US$244 billion in 2025, up 9.7% on 2024, while investment into the region’s global-value-chain (GVC) intensive manufacturing industries more than halved.

The rise in recorded inflows and the fall in industrial investment happened in the same year. Inflows rose from US$222 billion in 2024 to US$244 billion in 2025, and South-East Asia became the largest recipient subregion in developing Asia. Eight of the eleven markets grew. Over the same year, investment into the region's GVC-intensive manufacturing industries fell from US$31 billion to US$14 billion. The 2025 investment was concentrated in communications, semiconductors, electronics and renewable energy.

Three markets take almost four fifths of recorded inflows. Three markets account for 78.9% of recorded inflows — Singapore 61.8%, Indonesia 8.8%, Viet Nam 8.3%. The Herfindahl-Hirschman index across the eleven market shares is approximately 4,085 — the sum of the squared shares printed in Table 1 — against the 2,500 threshold conventionally applied by competition authorities.

Two bodies are cited in this edition and they are never combined. The levels and the composition are from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), World Investment Report 2026, published 7 July 2026: annex table 1 for the levels and chapter I for the composition, read 31 August 2026. UNCTAD's grouping is South-East Asia — eleven economies, Timor-Leste included. The source-economy mix in Table 2 is from the ASEAN Secretariat's ASEAN FDI Database, via ASEANstats, preliminary as at 1 July 2026 and read 5 September 2026 — the only body that publishes where the region's inflows come from. The two compile on different bases and their regional totals differ by about US$1.5 billion; each table is read against its own source and no figure is carried between them.

Key message 1Investment into ASEAN rose in 2025 while investment into its manufacturing fell by more than half

South-East Asia recorded US$244 billion of inward investment in 2025, up 9.7% on the year, and became the largest recipient subregion in developing Asia. Over the same twelve months, investment into the region’s global-value-chain-intensive manufacturing fell from US$31 billion to US$14 billion. ASEAN received more investment and directed a smaller share of it into industrial capacity. The headline figure and the composition of that figure point in opposite directions, and only the headline is usually reported.

Key message 2Malaysia and Thailand received most of the region’s additional investment in 2025; Viet Nam received almost none

Malaysia and Thailand added US$9.6 billion between them, rising 50.9% and 30.3%. Indonesia and the Philippines lost US$3.8 billion, falling 13.6% and 4.3%. Viet Nam — the market most often named when the relocation of manufacturing out of China is discussed — was flat, at 0.9%. The relocation of manufacturing out of China is commonly assumed to favour Viet Nam. In 2025 the additional investment went to Malaysia and Thailand. An investment case resting on Viet Nam as the automatic beneficiary is not supported by the year’s figures.

Key message 3Investment into ASEAN became more concentrated in 2025, not less

Singapore’s inflows rose 10.8% to US$150.9 billion and its share of the region reached 61.8%. Three markets took 78.9% of everything that arrived; the remaining eight shared about US$51.5 billion between them. Discussion of the region emphasises diversification of investment away from single markets. The recorded figures for 2025 show the opposite.

The Pulse records where foreign direct investment actually landed across the eleven markets: how much, in which direction, and how concentrated the flow is.

Inflows reached US$244 billion in 2025, up 9.7% on 2024, making South-East Asia the largest recipient subregion in developing Asia. Eight of the eleven markets grew. Over the same year, investment into the region’s global-value-chain (GVC) intensive manufacturing industries more than halved, from US$31 billion to US$14 billion. Recorded investment rose; investment into the manufacturing that builds industrial capacity fell.

Singapore takes 61.8% of the regional total and the top three markets take 78.9%. The remaining eight share 21.1%, or about US$51.5 billion between them. Singapore alone receives close to three times what those eight receive together. Singapore's position is described in the source as reflecting "its role as a headquarters location and financial hub for international investment flows".

Singapore is three fifths of the regional total, and it is a headquarters and financial centre. That makes the regional figure a weak guide to where money is actually being put to work. A company deciding where to invest in the other ten markets should not read the regional total as a guide.

On the 2025 mix, the largest single source of investment into South-East Asia is Singapore, at 13.7% of recorded inflows, ahead of the United States at 12.2%. Singapore is a member of the region it is investing into, so the ranking is describing capital being placed through a financial centre and then deployed outward, not a new external investor. Read alongside Finding 1, where Singapore also receives three fifths of the region’s inflows, the two readings are the same fact seen from either end.

The larger figure in this table is the one with no name against it. US$47.8 billion, 19.4% of everything recorded, is filed under unspecified countries — more than any single economy and more than the eleven member states combined contribute to one another. A fifth of the region’s inbound investment cannot be traced to where it came from. That is a limit on what any source analysis of ASEAN can claim, and it is stated here rather than distributed across the named rows.

Three per-market source concentrations sit beneath the regional figure, each on the issuing body’s own basis and none of them comparable with the table above: Singapore and China together account for 56% of Malaysia’s approved foreign investment (the Malaysian Investment Development Authority, MIDA, on approvals); China accounts for approximately 53% of Cambodia’s approvals (the Council for the Development of Cambodia, CDC); and in Viet Nam’s new registrations, China and Hong Kong combined stand at 31% against Singapore’s 27.9% (the National Statistics Office, NSO, on new registrations).

Where investment comes from matters as much as how much of it arrives: a market that draws half its capital from a single country is exposed to that country’s policy decisions. Three concentrations are on record, each on its own issuing body’s basis and none comparable with another: Singapore and China together account for 56% of Malaysia's approved foreign investment (the Malaysian Investment Development Authority, MIDA, on approvals); China accounts for approximately 53% of Cambodia's approvals (the Council for the Development of Cambodia, CDC); and in Viet Nam's new registrations, China and Hong Kong combined stand at 31% against Singapore's 27.9% (the National Statistics Office, NSO, on new registrations). These are approvals and registrations, not flows. They are not the source mix of the figures in Table 1, and no source mix for 2025 is published.

The two markets that grew fastest in 2025 are the two with the least consistent decade behind them. Malaysia rose 50.9% and Thailand 30.3%, the largest proportional gains among the substantial markets. Of the nine markets large enough to classify, Thailand carries the highest variation at a coefficient of 0.66, Myanmar the second at 0.51 and Malaysia the third at 0.40. Brunei Darussalam records a higher coefficient still, at 1.65, and Timor-Leste records none at all; both are set aside as small and lumpy, where a proportional measure carries no information. Brunei Darussalam averages US$183 million a year over the decade and was net-negative in three of the ten years; Timor-Leste’s decade average is itself negative, which is why no coefficient is computed for it. Lao PDR, by contrast, averages US$1.14 billion with no net-negative year, which is what places it above the small-and-lumpy threshold and inside the steady group. Viet Nam, by contrast, rose 0.9% and carries the steadiest decade in the region at 0.16. A single strong year in Malaysia or Thailand is therefore weaker evidence of a trend than the same year would be in Viet Nam. An operator sizing a market on last year alone will read those three rises as equivalent, and they are not.

Six markets have held a steady decade: Singapore, Indonesia, Viet Nam, the Philippines, Cambodia and Lao PDR. Five have not — Thailand swinging, Malaysia and Myanmar variable, and Timor-Leste and Brunei Darussalam too small and too lumpy to classify. Consistency and scale do not travel together here. Cambodia, at 2.1% of the region, holds a steadier decade than Malaysia at 6.3%, and the Philippines holds a steadier one than either.

The table reports each market on the compilation published by the World Bank. It is a different source from Table 1 and is not comparable with it line by line; the two are never added together.

The composition of investment into ASEAN turned over in a single year. Inflows into the financial and insurance sector fell from US$136 billion in 2023 to US$92 billion in 2024, a loss of a third. Over the same year manufacturing rose from US$18 billion to US$44 billion, and professional and scientific activities moved from a net outflow of US$4 billion to an inflow of US$23 billion. The financial and insurance sector remained the largest single destination, but its lead over manufacturing narrowed from US$118 billion to US$48 billion.

Malaysia’s own investment authority records three times the investment that the international figure shows; Indonesia’s records two and a half times; Cambodia’s and Viet Nam’s about twice. The Philippines is the only one of those six where the national figure is lower — about half. Singapore is the seventh row and sits outside the comparison, because a stock is a level and the ratio would mean nothing. An operator reading a government announcement and an international series will therefore encounter two very different numbers for the same country and year, and both are correct on their own basis. The gaps are structural and documented, and this edition records them rather than reconciling them. This table is the one place in the edition where two bases sit side by side, and that is its purpose. Nothing in it is added to, netted against or mixed with anything in Table 1.