ACCORDING TO A NEW report, the five major economies of the ASEAN region are expected to import as much as S16 billion worth of energy products over the next few years to power their economic growth. Their installed energy capacity will need to increase 20%-40%, adding between 168 and 192 gigawatts of power. Demand is already outstripping production in most of the five and will soon do so in all of them.
Sustainable Energy Futures in Southeast Asia, written from a United States perspective by Ernest Z. Bower, Murray Hiebert, David Pumphrey, Gregory B. Poling and Molly A. Walton, argues that unless the USA launches new initiatives to snare sizeable shares of this investment, US companies are unlikely to be major players in all this trade.
The publisher, Center for Strategic and International Studies, has kindly made the digital version available free-of-charge for a period of time. Download the report here.