The Tiger Cub Economies collectively refer to the economies of the developing countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, [1] the five dominant countries in Southeast Asia. [2] [3]
The Tiger Cub Economies are so named because they attempt to follow the same export-driven model of technology and economic development already achieved by the rich, high-tech, industrialized, and developed countries of South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, along with the wealthy financial center of Hong Kong, which are all collectively referred to as the Four Asian Tigers. [4] [5] [6] [7] Young tigers are referred to as "cubs", the implication being that the five newly industrialized countries [8] who make up the Tiger Cub Economies are rising Tigers. In fact, four countries are included in HSBC's list of top 50 economies in 2050, [9] while Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines are included in Goldman Sachs's Next Eleven list of high potential economies because of their rapid growth[ quantify ] and large population.
Overseas Chinese entrepreneurs played a major prominent role in the development of the region's private sectors. These businesses are part of the larger bamboo network, a network of overseas Chinese businesses operating in the markets of developing countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines that share common family and cultural ties. [10] China's transformation into a major economic power in the 21st century has led to increasing investments in Southeast Asian countries where the bamboo network is present. [11]
GDP and GDP per capita data are according to World Bank's July 2020 data. [12]
| Rank | Country | Population in million | GDP Nominal millions of USD | GDP Nominal per capita USD | GDP (PPP) millions of USD | GDP (PPP) per capita USD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — |  ASEAN | 654.306 | 3,173,141 | 4,849 | 8,454,651 | 12,921 |
| 1 |  Indonesia | 266.998 | 1,119,191 | 4,136 | 3,329,169 | 12,302 |
| 2 |  Thailand | 67.913 | 543,650 | 7,808 | 1,338,781 | 19,228 |
| 3 |  Philippines | 108.307 | 376,796 | 3,485 | 1,003,038 | 9,277 |
| 4 |  Malaysia | 32.801 | 338.280 | 11,415 | 978.780 | 29,340 |
| 5 |  Vietnam | 95.494 | 354,800 | 3,758 | 1,142,177 | 11,677 |
The economy of the Philippines is an emerging market, a newly industrialized country and one of the most dynamic in the Asia-Pacific region. As a developing economy, the country is working towards achieving greater industrialization and economic growth. In 2023, the Philippine economy is estimated to be at ₱24.56 trillion, making it the world's 36th largest by nominal GDP and 15th largest in Asia according to the International Monetary Fund.
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and north-west of mainland Australia which is part of Oceania. Southeast Asia is bordered to the north by East Asia, to the west by South Asia and the Bay of Bengal, to the east by Oceania and the Pacific Ocean, and to the south by Australia and the Indian Ocean. Apart from the British Indian Ocean Territory and two out of 26 atolls of Maldives in South Asia, Maritime Southeast Asia is the only other subregion of Asia that lies partly within the Southern Hemisphere. Mainland Southeast Asia is completely in the Northern Hemisphere. East Timor and the southern portion of Indonesia are the parts of Southeast Asia that lie south of the Equator.
The economy of Taiwan is a highly developed free-market economy. It is the 8th largest in Asia and 20th-largest in the world by purchasing power parity, allowing Taiwan to be included in the advanced economies group by the International Monetary Fund. Taiwan is notable for its rapid economic development to a developed, high-income country. This economic growth has been described as the Taiwan Miracle. It is gauged in the high-income economies group by the World Bank. Taiwan is one of the most technologically advanced computer microchip and high-tech electronics industries makers in the world.
ASEAN, officially an abbreviation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is a political and economic union of 10 member states in Southeast Asia. It has a population of over 600 million and covers an area of 4.5 million km2 (1.7 million sq mi). ASEAN generated a purchasing power parity (PPP) gross domestic product (GDP) of around US$10.2 trillion in 2022, constituting approximately 6.5% of global GDP (PPP).
The Four Asian Tigers are the developed East Asian economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. Between the early 1950s and 1990s, they underwent rapid industrialization and maintained exceptionally high growth rates of more than 7 percent a year.
The Bamboo Curtain is a Cold War political demarcation between the communist states of East Asia, particularly the People's Republic of China, and the capitalist and non-communist states of East, South, and Southeast Asia. To the north and northwest lay the communist states of China, the Soviet Union, North Vietnam, North Korea, and Mongolian People's Republic. To the south and east lay the capitalist and non-communist countries of India, Pakistan, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea, British Hong Kong, and Portuguese Macau. Before the Indochina Wars the non-communist bloc included French Indochina and its successor states South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. However, after the wars the new countries of Vietnam, Laos, and Democratic Kampuchea became communist states. In particular, following the Korean War, the Korean Demilitarized Zone became an important symbol of this Asian division.
The 1997 Asian financial crisis was a period of financial crisis that gripped much of East and Southeast Asia during the late 1990s. The crisis began in Thailand in July 1997 before spreading to several other countries with a ripple effect, raising fears of a worldwide economic meltdown due to financial contagion. However, the recovery in 1998–1999 was rapid, and worries of a meltdown quickly subsided.
The economy of Asia comprises about 4.7 billion people living in 50 different nations. Asia is the fastest growing economic region, as well as the largest continental economy by both GDP Nominal and PPP in the world. Moreover, Asia is the site of some of the world's longest modern economic booms, starting from the Japanese economic miracle (1950–1990), Miracle on the Han River (1961–1996) in South Korea, economic boom (1978–2013) in China, Tiger Cub Economies (1990–2020) in ASEAN, and economic boom in India (1991–present).
An emerging market is a market that has some characteristics of a developed market, but does not fully meet its standards. This includes markets that may become developed markets in the future or were in the past. The term "frontier market" is used for developing countries with smaller, riskier, or more illiquid capital markets than "emerging". As of 2006, the economies of China and India are considered to be the largest emerging markets. According to The Economist, many people find the term outdated, but no new term has gained traction. Emerging market hedge fund capital reached a record new level in the first quarter of 2011 of $121 billion. Emerging market economies’ share of global PPP-adjusted GDP has risen from 27 percent in 1960 to around 53 percent by 2013. The 10 largest emerging and developing economies by either nominal or PPP-adjusted GDP are 4 of the 5 BRICS countries along with Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan and Turkey.
A tiger economy is the economy of a country which undergoes rapid economic growth, usually accompanied by an increase in the standard of living. The term was originally used for the Four Asian Tigers as tigers are important in Asian symbolism, which also inspired the Tiger Cub Economies. The Asian Tigers also inspired other economies later on; the Anatolian Tigers in the 1980s, the Gulf Tiger (Dubai) in the 1990s, the Celtic Tiger in 1995–2000, the Baltic tigers in 2000–2007, and the Tatra Tiger (Slovakia) in 2002–2007.
Economic miracle is an informal economic term for a period of dramatic economic development that is entirely unexpected or unexpectedly strong. Economic miracles have occurred in the recent histories of a number of countries, often those undergoing an economic boom or described as a tiger economy.
The Asian Century is the projected 21st-century dominance of Asian politics and culture, assuming certain demographic and economic trends persist. The concept of Asian Century parallels the characterisation of the 19th century as Britain's Imperial Century, and the 20th century as the American Century.
Developmental state, or hard state, is a term used by international political economy scholars to refer to the phenomenon of state-led macroeconomic planning in East Asia in the late 20th century. In this model of capitalism, the state has more independent, or autonomous, political power, as well as more control over the economy. A developmental state is characterized by having strong state intervention, as well as extensive regulation and planning. The term has subsequently been used to describe countries outside East Asia that satisfy the criteria of a developmental state. The developmental state is sometimes contrasted with a predatory state or weak state.
The East Asian model, pioneered by Japan, is a plan for economic growth whereby the government invests in certain sectors of the economy in order to stimulate the growth of specific industries in the private sector. It generally refers to the model of development pursued in East Asian economies such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. It has also been used by some to describe the contemporary economic system in Mainland China after Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms during the late 1970s and the current economic system of Vietnam after its Đổi Mới policy was implemented in 1986.
The ASEAN–China Free Trade Area (ACFTA) is a free-trade area among the ten member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the People's Republic of China.
The Bamboo network or the Chinese Commonwealth is used to conceptualize the links between businesses run by Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. It links the Overseas Chinese business community of Southeast Asia, namely Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Myanmar with the economies of Greater China. Overseas Chinese companies in Southeast Asia are usually managed as family businesses in a centralized bureaucratic manner. In an article in The New York Review of Books, Indian critic Pankaj Mishra called it a "largest economic force in Asia outside of Japan".
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is a free trade agreement among the Asia-Pacific nations of Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The 15 member countries account for about 30% of the world's population and 30% of global GDP, making it the largest trade bloc in history. Signed in November 2020, RCEP is the first free trade agreement among the largest economies in Asia, including China, Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea.
The East Asian Bureau of Economic Research (EABER) is a forum for economic research and analysis of the major issues facing the economies of East Asia.
MINT is an acronym referring to the economies of Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey. The term was originally coined in 2014 by Fidelity Investments, a Boston-based asset management firm, and was popularized by Jim O'Neill of Goldman Sachs, who had created the term BRIC. The term is primarily used in the economic and financial spheres as well as in academia. Its usage has grown specially in the investment sector, where it is used to refer to the bonds issued by these governments. These four countries are also part of the "Next Eleven".
Since its formation in 1963, Malaysia's economic performance has been one of Asia's best. Real gross domestic product (GDP) grew by an average of 6.5% per year from 1957 to 2005. Performance peaked in the early 1980s through the mid-1990s, as the economy experienced sustained rapid growth averaging almost 8% annually. High levels of foreign and domestic private investment played a significant role as the economy diversified and modernised. Once heavily dependent on primary products such as rubber and tin, Malaysia today is an upper middle-income country with a multi-sector economy based on services and manufacturing. Malaysia is one of the world's largest exporters of semiconductor components and devices, electrical goods, solar panels, and information and communication technology (ICT) products.
