Background

As a bloc, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN — Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) already forms one of the world’s largest collective economies.
According to the 2025 IMF World Economic Outlook, ASEAN’s combined GDP at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) is roughly US $13 trillion, versus US $30.5 trillion for the United States — a little over 40 % of U.S. size today. Continued rapid growth in populous members such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, together with steady expansion in services and high-tech hubs like Singapore and Malaysia, leads many forecasters to ask when the region might finally match the U.S. in PPP terms.

Resolution Criteria

This market resolves to the first calendar year in which ASEAN’s combined GDP at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) is at least 1.00 times (≥ 100 %) the GDP (PPP) of the United States, based on the following rules:

1. Primary data source — Use the April or October release of the IMF World Economic Outlook (WEO) for the relevant year. If IMF figures are unavailable, refer sequentially to the World Bank PPP GDP series or the OECD Economic Outlook data.

2. Calculation method — ASEAN’s GDP (PPP) is calculated by summing the PPP GDPs of all current ASEAN member states (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) using the selected data source. This total must be greater than or equal to the U.S. PPP GDP in the same dataset and year.