Some Data on ASEAN Countries’ Chemical Production

Two databases, the World Bank’s database on countries (click here to go to the data on Malaysia) and the International Trade Center’s database on country exports and imports (click here to go to this database) were used to generate data on ASEAN country chemical production.

Using the World Bank’s database, the value added in the manufacture of chemicals for each ASEAN country could be determined.  (Value added is the sales price of the chemical manufactured less the direct cost to make the chemical sold.)   The total value added for manufactured chemicals, for each country, is shown in Table 1.  (Insufficient data is available for Laos and Myanmar to determine their value added amounts.)  The value added of chemicals manufactured was computed by multiplying the value added for all manufactured products by the percentage of these products that are chemical products (the sets of data that are provided in the database).

The percentage of value added chemical manufactured to a country’s gross domestic product (GDP) (given in Table 1) should be an indicator of the country’s amount of chemical production activity relative to other ASEAN countries.

Table 1 country	value added in manufacturing (in billion usd)	% chemical manufacturing value added	value added chemicals manufacturing (in billion usd)	gross domestic product (GDP) (in billion usd)	value added chemical manufacturing  as % GDP
singapore	$53.5	29%	$15.3	$307.9	5.0%
indonesia	$194.3	14%	$26.2	$888.5	3.0%
malaysia	$77.4	12%	$8.9	$338.0	2.6%
vietnam	$71.7	6%	$3.9	$186.2	2.1%
cambodia	$2.6	13%	$0.3	$16.8	1.9%
thailand	$67.3	7%	$4.4	$404.8	1.1%
phillippines	$39.7	6%	$2.2	$284.8	0.8%

Using the International Trade Center’s country database, the total chemical products exported and imported for each country could be found and from this data the net chemical exports could be determined (shown in Table 2).  (Chemcial products include: inorganic products; organic products; and miscellaneous chemical preducts.)   Presumably, the size of the net chemical exports is an indicator of the sufficiency of a country’s chemical production capacity, e.g., the more the net export amount the greater the sufficiency.   And, computing the net chemical export amounts for each country as a percentage of the GDP should show that sufficiency compared to the other ASEAN countries. 

Table 2 country	total chemical exports (in billion usd)	total chemical imports (in billion usd)	net chemical exports (in billion usd	gross domestic product (GDP) (in billion usd)	net chemical exports as % GDP
singapore	$23.2	$12.7	$10.5	$307.9	3.4%
malaysia	$7.8	$7.5	$0.3	$338.0	0.1%
indonesia	$7.8	$8.9	-$1.1	$888.5	-0.1%
phillippines	$1.4	$2.0	-$0.6	$284.8	-0.2%
laos	$0.2	$0.9	-$0.7	$12.0	-0.5%
myanmar	$0.2	$0.4	-$0.2	$64.3	-0.6%
thailand	$5.4	$8.6	-$3.2	$404.8	-0.8%
cambodia	$0.0	$0.2	-$0.2	$16.8	-1.1%
vietnam	$1.5	$5.8	-$4.3	$186.2	-2.3%

The data in Tables 1 sand 2 suggest that Singapore is the most impressive chemical producer (in terms of value) of the ASEAN countries and Singapore and Malaysia are the only two countries producing and exporting more chemicals than are needed internally.  

Another possible interesting conclusion from the data in Table 2 is that those countries with the highest negative net chemical exports as a percentage of GDP are the countries most in need of chemical purchases from other countries.