A Dataset Development for ASEAN’s Blue Economic Posture: Measuring Southeast Asian Countries Capacities and Capabilities on Harnessing the Ocean Economy

Abstract

In the new global economy, Blue Economy has become a central issue, including for Southeast Asian Countries regarding its potentials as key drivers of economic growth and innovation. ASEAN member countries has declared to commit on taking the lead on the regional cooperation in relation to the Blue Economy through ASEAN Leaders’ Declaration on the Blue Economy, last 26 October 2021, in Brunei Darussalam. Besides the economic opportunities, Blue Economy has responsibilities to carry out due to the need to ensure ocean sustainability and rules-based ocean governance. We applied descriptive-quantitative methods on building the dataset and some preliminary analysis. As a result, we succeeded identifying ASEAN member countries capacities and capabilities regarding the Blue Economy implementations. We managed to develop ASEAN Blue Economy Dataset using numbers of official and reputable macro-economic and political-security data which are related to established and emerging sectors of Blue Economy. By using the data and indices generated from the dataset, we measured ASEAN ‘Blue Economic Posture’ to quantify and portray ASEAN’s trajectory to actualize sustainable ocean economy in term of capacity building and potential cooperation initiatives.