Despite challenging global business climate, Asia aims to post continued growth with South Asia and Southeast Asia regions eyeing to achieve faster growth in the volume of trade from 2024 to 2029 compared with the preceding decade, reveals DHL Trade Atlas 2025. The report, commissioned by logistics services provider DHL, is a comprehensive analysis of important trends in global trade.
“As we look towards the future of trade in Asia, it’s clear how trade growth has proven surprisingly resilient in the face of recent disruptions. With the ongoing diversification of supply chains that continues to reshape the commerce landscape, Asia has steadfastly emerged as a key player in the global market,” said Ken Lee, CEO-Asia Pacific at DHL Express. “However, we must approach this promising outlook with a measured perspective, recognizing the uncertainties and volatility that continue to characterize the global business environment. As businesses diversify supply chains, it is essential they stay innovative in their strategy and proactive in seeking out new routes to growth.”
For the period 2024 to 2029, South Asia and ASEAN are projected to register the fastest growth in trade volume among major world regions, with compound annual growth rate of 5.6% and 5.0%, respectively. Other regions such as South America and Europe are forecasted to grow at rates of 2.7%.
The DHL Trade Atlas 2025 disclosed that the shares of trade conducted by the world’s major geographic regions have changed since 2000, with the most dramatic change observed in Asian economies. Between 2000 and 2024, the share of world trade produced by South and Central Asia rose 5% from 2%. On the other hand, a major region like Europe saw its share of world trade drop from 41% to 36% for the same period.
The report demonstrates that trade has not become more regionalized overall as actual trade flows indicate the opposite trend. In the first nine months of 2024, the average distance traversed for all traded goods reached a record 5,000 kilometers, compared to just over 4,500 kilometers in 2000. This development can be attributed to the fact that Europe and North America have increasingly traded with Asia, as “Factory Asia” becomes central to global production networks.
New Leaders in Trade Growth
The DHL report also predicts that four countries in Asia will become leaders in trade growth, making them on the list of top 30 for both speed (growth rate) and scale (absolute amount) of trade growth from 2024 to 2029. These nations include India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
These countries are projected to perform better in the next five years. India is expected to maintain its third-place rank on the scale dimension as well as leap 15 spots to the 17th position on the speed dimension with compound annual growth in trade volume rising from 5.2% to 7.2%. India may also deliver 6% of the world’s trade growth, behind China’s 12% and the US’ 10%.
The trade outlook of Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines appears promising due to the substantial benefit from supply chain shifts and diversification strategies. Vietnam looks forward to maintain a 6.5% compound annual growth in trade volume over the five-year period and ranked fifth on the scale dimension. Indonesia is predicted to maintain its 12th position on the scale rankings, while rising from 33rd to 25th in the speed rankings. More notably, the Philippines is set to move 114 positions to rank 15th on the speed dimension, and rise from 68th to 30th on the scale dimension.
Global trade expected to grow over the next five years
Goods trade is forecasted to grow at a compound annual rate of 3.1% from 2024 to 2029. This roughly aligns with GDP growth and represents modestly faster trade growth compared to the previous decade. Even if the new US administration implements all of its proposed tariff increases and other countries retaliate, global trade is still expected to grow over the next five years – but at a much slower pace.
“While threats to the global trading system must be taken seriously, global trade has shown great resilience because of the large benefits that it delivers for economies and societies,” said Steven A. Altman, senior research scholar and director of the DHL Initiative on Globalization at NYU Stern’s Center for the Future of Management. “While the US could pull back from trade – at a significant cost – other countries are not likely to follow the US down that path because smaller countries would suffer even more in a global retreat from trade.”
