Since Asia is becoming more focused on its attractiveness to other countries for investments, what has become crucial for the region is the establishment of a secure environment. What this means is that Asia must be able to present itself as an economically and politically stable nation.

Following the negotiation of the ASEAN free trade in the early 1990s and the simultaneous creation of cooperative trade institutions, free trade is now a crucial part of the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint for a single market and production base that is to be negotiated this year.

Perhaps as a result, there has become a shift from the US to Asia vis-à-vis substantial investments in digital marketing. One example of this hails from Incubate Fund, a Japan-based venture capital which recently raised around $91 million, having previously focused on seed investments. Now it is moving toward early-stage Asian startups.

Such funding for startups in Asia is most welcome in the region, as historically, acquiescing such funding was quite challenging. But now Japanese-based firms in particular are realizing the benefits of regional investments like the one above as well as Rakuten (an e-commerce leader) and others.