net zero. today, 140 countries have made a similar commitment. how the winds have changed. if anything, the last ten years have shown how foolhardy it is to predict the future. nonetheless, at the risk of being proven completely foolish in ten years, i ’ m going to take a crack at laying out what i believe might be three dominant investment themes for the asia - pacific in the next decade : asean alternative energy artificial intelligence asean – the new growth story i will start with asean - among the most dynamic economic regions in the world. real gdp growth has averaged 5. 3 % annually since 2015 outside the pandemic years, compared to 4. 3 % in emerging and developing economies. growth in asean will continue to outpace the rest of the world – according to the imf, real gdp is projected to grow by 4. 6 % in 2023, compared to 4. 1 % for emerging and developing economies [ 1 ]. asean ’ s growth will be driven by several factors – favourable demographics, rising affluence, rapid urbanisation, supply chain reconfigurations, a digitally savvy consumer base, growing entrepreneurship, and deepening economic and financial integration. asean is likely to benefit from an outward shift of manufacturing from china. the southeast asian economies are emerging as key intermediaries for us - china trade. both superpowers are reconfiguring trade and manufacturing through the asean region. vietnam and thailand stand to benefit the most from this trade diversion. during 2017 - 2022, while china ’ s share in global electronics fell 4. 1 % - points, vietnam ’ s and thailand ’ s market share leapt by 14 % - points and 5. 7 % - points respectively. asean ’ s digital economy is growing rapidly. according to industry estimates, some 100 million additional internet users have come online in asean in the last three years, and asean ’ s digital economy has nearly doubled during this period. it is estimated that asean ’ s digital economy could grow up to us $ 330 million gross market value by 2025. digital financial services in particular are set to grow rapidly. payments, remittances, loans and investments are projected to grow annually by between 13 % and 38 % from 2022 to 2030. asean is becoming a hotspot for start - ups and unicorns. the number of start - ups in asean that have raised more than us $ 1 million in funding almost tripled between 2015 and 2021.

the private sector is good at leading innovation, subject to the return on investment providing a clear incentive. when this is the case, they do an excellent job. they drive applied research, apply technology in an agile fashion, and deploy solutions to markets quickly. however, private sector firms are less incentivised to innovate in cases where the return on investment is unclear and the benefits may not accrue primarily to them. 2 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches hence, when there is a need for innovation to develop essential industry infrastructures that benefit the entire financial system, central banks can step in to provide these public goods. we are able to leverage our unique position in the ecosystem to drive collaboration within the local financial sector community, and act as bridges to facilitate collaboration across borders. where appropriate, central banks can also encourage industry stakeholders to pursue specific commercialisation opportunities which meet wider financial system needs. in so doing, central banks need to carry the spirit of innovation in their working philosophy, be open to collaborate with the private sector, adopt an agile approach when exploring possibilities, and even be prepared to fail fast within boundaries. 8. at this juncture, allow me to share with you mas ’ journey on project ubin, and how this collaboration between the public and private sectors has led to payments innovation that will benefit the ecosystem. when cryptocurrencies and public blockchains first emerged, we struggled to understand what they were and how they worked. the idea that a group of miners linking up blocks into a chain could turn computational power into assets of value was highly bewildering. we too had our doubts and felt that the best way to understand the technology, was to test it out for ourselves and learn through practical experimentation. mas recognised that distributed ledger technologies held the potential to empower an industry infrastructure for more efficient clearing and settlement of payments and securities. such an infrastructure would benefit the entire financial sector, but no individual firm had an incentive to drive exploration of this possibility. we thus launched project ubin in 2016, which has been through five phases through 2020. under this project, mas collaborated closely with industry partners to explore the development of blockchain - based settlement systems and understand the benefits and value it brings. this culminated in the development of a blockchain - based prototype for digital multi - currency settlement in phase 5. through this project, the benefit to the industry had become clear, along with private incentives for commercialisation. with project ubin having