RCEP Region's Global GDP Share Reaches 28% by 2025, AMRO Chief Reports
asiansuntimes.com · post 57232 · 2026-09-10
MANILA, September 10 — The centre of global economic gravity has shifted decisively toward East Asia, and the numbers behind that shift were laid out this week at the first-ever RCEP Business and Investment Summit. Yasuto Watanabe, Director and CEO of the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO), delivered the presentation on September 9 at the inaugural summit, convened by the East Asia Business Council and the Management Association of the Philippines.
His message for communities and businesses across the region: the trading bloc they live and work in is now one of the largest economic forces on earth. In 1990, North America and the euro area together accounted for 55% of global GDP, while the RCEP region held about 20%.
By 2025, RCEP’s share had risen to 28% — roughly equal to North America’s and nearly double that of the euro area. The bloc now represents about 30% of the world’s population and 30% of global trade.
ASEAN+3 at the core
Within RCEP, ASEAN+3 — the ten ASEAN members plus China, Japan, and Korea — accounts for 92% of the bloc’s GDP. AMRO, which conducts economic surveillance and technical assistance across ASEAN+3, oversees the USD 240 billion Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation (CMIM), a regional financial safety net equivalent to about 20% of the International Monetary Fund’s financial resources. Watanabe projected ASEAN+3 growth to ease to 4.1% in 2026 and 4.0% in 2027, with inflation rising from 0.9% in 2025 to 1.6% in 2026.
He identified three downside risks. A sharp slowdown in artificial intelligence demand could pull growth down to 2.5%.
A renewed escalation of the Middle East conflict could push inflation to 4.6%. Uncertainty over tariffs and broader trade policy shifts remains a concern. Despite these risks, AMRO estimates ASEAN+3 will contribute about 44% of global growth for the remainder of this decade.
A region that trades with itself
Watanabe described a structural transformation under way. East Asia was once called the world’s factory, producing goods for final demand elsewhere, but more goods are now made, traded, invested in, and consumed within the region itself. In 2000, global production centred on three main nodes — the United States, Germany, and Japan.
Those remain important, but China has emerged as another major production hub, with supply chains across ASEAN+3 becoming denser and more connected, giving firms more options. The speech was delivered at the inaugural RCEP Business and Investment Summit under the theme “Business in the RCEP Economy: Competing, Connecting and Scaling Across East Asia.” For communities and families across the region, the summit marks the first time the bloc’s business and investment agenda has been brought together under one roof.
What to watch next is whether the growth AMRO projects for ASEAN+3 holds through 2027, and how the three risks Watanabe named — AI demand, Middle East conflict, and tariff uncertainty — play out for the region’s economies.