The Southeast Asia region, with more than half-a-billion people, is among the fastest-growing regions in the world but levels of growth and prosperity within the region remain uneven.  Good policies need to be implemented in the region to maintain strong growth and make it more inclusive, boosting productivity, reducing poverty, and avoid falling into the “middle income trap”.

The OECD Southeast Asia Regional Programme, launched today at the 2014 OECD Ministerial Council, aims to support the region in achieving these objectives. Building on two decades of engagement with the region, the Programme will provide a strengthened platform for sharing good policy practices among policy makers in Southeast Asia and OECD countries, informing and supporting reform processes, both at national and regional level.

The issues identified for initial focus include investment, SMEs, tax, education and skills, public-private partnerships for infrastructure, regulatory reform, trade, innovation and gender.

The Programme will also benefit from the expertise of the Development Centre, which has Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam as members.

An example of the OECD’s increased focus on the region is a new report, launched today: Revenue Statistics in Asian Countries: Trends in Indonesia and Malaysia. It provides for the first time internationally-comparable data comparing the situation in the two countries with trends in Japan and Korea and the average of the 34 OECD economies.