By Dr. Wan Khatina Nawawi, Managing Director, EconWorks Advisory
As Southeast Asia’s digital economy expands, the governance of platform markets has emerged as one of the region’s most complex policy challenges. Digital platforms now mediate a significant share of commerce, services, and mobility across ASEAN. These platforms are reshaping market structures, shifting competitive dynamics, and introducing new forms of economic dependency and risk. In response, the AMS’ national competition authorities (NCAs) are under growing pressure to adapt their competition regimes to ensure that innovation does not come at the expense of fairness, contestability and inclusion.
The stakes are high. According to the e-Conomy SEA 2024 report, in 2024, Southeast Asia’s digital economy reached USD263 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV), USD89 billion in revenue, and USD11 billion in profit. E-commerce, digital finance, and online travel services are leading this growth, with platform ecosystems at the core. However, as platform dominance consolidates and market power becomes more data-driven and less visible through traditional pricing metrics, existing regulatory tools may fall short.
The Case For Reform
Recognising this development, the ASEAN Digital Masterplan 2025 (ADM 2025) released in 2021, has called for greater policy coordination, regulatory interoperability, and inclusive digital development between ICT regulators and NCAs. This vision is consistent with the 2023 ITU report on ASEAN digital regulation, which emphasized the importance of coherent, adaptive, and risk-based digital regulation in ASEAN.
Within the AMS, national efforts to modernise competition regimes are already underway. Vietnam’s new Decree 147/2024, issued on 9 November 2024, seeks to strengthen oversight of cross-border e-commerce activity. Meanwhile, Thailand’s proposed Platform Economy Act (PEA), released on 15 January 2025, introduces obligations for “significant” platforms based on user scale and data control. However, following stakeholder feedback over compliance burdens and regulatory overlap, the government has paused the drafting process for further review. In March 2025, the Malaysia Competition Commission (MyCC) also published a comprehensive interim report on the digital economy ecosystem, flagging concerns related to self-preferencing, pricing parity clauses, and asymmetric bargaining power in selected digital markets.
One Size Fits All, Or Does It?
Despite the differences in details, these developments point to a shared recognition that traditional, price-centric models of competition governance are inadequate in today’s digital environment. Yet the path forward is far from settled. A critical question looms: should the AMS adopt harmonised competition regimes to govern platform markets, or develop tailored national regimes that reflect their institutional and market-specific contexts?
The appeal of tailored regimes is understandable. ASEAN is not a monolith. The AMS differ markedly in their levels of digital maturity, legal traditions, regulatory capacity, and political economy. Tailoring allows their NCAs to design rules that are context-specific, prioritise sectors of immediate relevance, and remain flexible to institutional constraints. This approach supports experimentation, accommodates local development goals, and respects national sovereignty, an important consideration in a region governed by consensus and non-interference.
Thailand’s PEA illustrates the complexity of digital platform regulation, even within a single jurisdiction. If designing a governance mechanism presents this level of challenge nationally, doing so across ASEAN’s diverse economies would be even more complex. This highlights the practical limits of a one-size-fits-all approach, and reinforces the need for tailored regulatory models that remain sensitive to domestic stakeholder dynamics and institutional readiness.
However, the limitations of tailored regimes are also evident. Regulatory fragmentation can increase compliance costs for businesses operating across borders, hinder regional integration, and expose enforcement gaps. These gaps can in turn create “regulatory havens” where platform providers could take advantage of weaker jurisdictions, undermining both the intent and efficacy of competition governance. Moreover, duplication of regulatory effort across the AMS may slow down the adoption of best practices and divert limited resources away from coordinated regional responses.
In contrast, a harmonised or one-size-fits-all regime offers regulatory coherence, reduces friction for cross-border services, and provides clearer signals to market players. It facilitates capacity sharing, supports collective learning, and strengthens ASEAN’s voice in international digital-related agreement negotiations. Yet such an approach is not without risk. Imposing uniform rules on diverse economies can stifle innovation in less mature markets, overlook localised harms, and strain national institutions. The political feasibility of deep regulatory integration is also uncertain, given ASEAN’s consensus-based mode of operation.
What is needed, therefore, is a middle path, one that combines shared principles with flexible implementation. A principles-based harmonisation model would allow the AMS to agree on foundational values, such as fairness, transparency, and non-discrimination, while retaining discretion in how these are applied domestically.
A Question of Collaboration
Beyond the question of regulatory design lies another equally significant issue: the nature and limits of collaboration between NCAs and digital platform players. In the face of fast-evolving technologies and limited institutional capacity, platforms are increasingly seen not just as regulated entities, but as potential partners in regime development. Structured collaboration can reduce information asymmetries, enable NCAs to understand algorithmic systems, and support early detection of anti-competitive conduct. Voluntary data-sharing agreements, algorithmic audits, and co-regulation through sandboxes or codes of conduct may all play a role in this context.
Engagements between NCAs and platform providers are particularly relevant where enforcement mechanisms are still nascent, and regulatory experimentation is desirable. However, these models also carry risks. Close collaboration can lead to regulatory capture, marginalise smaller stakeholders, and reduce public trust in the independence of NCAs. If not carefully managed, collaboration may inadvertently entrench dominant platforms, creating additional barriers to entry for smaller players.
To mitigate these risks, certain boundaries should be observed. Collaboration could be limited to non-enforcement domains such as technical standards or capacity building. Where platforms are engaged, the process must be transparent, inclusive, and accountable, with clear boundaries between policy dialogue and investigatory functions. Public consultations, stakeholder diversity, and time-bound agreements with sunset clauses can help maintain integrity while supporting innovation.
Five Priorities for ASEAN’s Digital Competition Regime
In view of these considerations, several priorities emerge for strengthening ASEAN’s competition regimes for the digital economy.
First, NCAs should continue to develop context-sensitive enforcement tools that reflect the specific platform dynamics in their jurisdictions. This may involve targeted sector reviews, differentiated obligations, or sandbox regulation.
Second, NCAs could consider broadening their conception of harm to digital platforms related risks which may include exploitative terms, algorithmic discrimination, and data-driven exclusion, particularly in zero-price markets where traditional pricing metrics are inapplicable.
Third, strengthening competition governance remains essential. Market reviews—such as those conducted by CCCS and MyCC—offer useful models for ecosystem mapping and early detection of emerging risks. For example, CCCS’s market study on e-commerce provided valuable insights that now serve as a baseline for ongoing regulatory monitoring. A key finding was that Singapore’s existing competition framework is sufficiently robust to address potential issues arising from the proliferation of e-commerce platforms operating across multiple market segments. In digital markets shaped by rapid technological change, tipping points, lock-ins, and market concentration, enforcement efforts anchored in rigorous, evidence-based research are vital to maintaining fair and dynamic competition.
Fourth, regional coordination must be deepened. Through collaborations and cooperation activities between the ASEAN Experts Group on Competition (AEGC) and the ASEAN Telecommunications Regulators’ Council (ATRC) as recommended in ADM 2025, the AMS can align standards, share expertise, and coordinate investigations.
Finally, platforms themselves must be part of the governance equation, but on terms that are transparent, inclusive, and subject to regulatory oversight. Dialogue should not substitute for enforcement, but where enforcement is not yet feasible, co-regulatory frameworks may offer a pragmatic step forward.
Conclusion
ASEAN’s digital economy holds immense promise, but its long-term sustainability will depend on the regulatory choices made today. Competition regimes, once confined to price and output considerations, must now grapple with complex digital ecosystems, where control over data, algorithms, and user interfaces shapes economic outcomes. Tailored regimes may offer flexibility, but they must be guided by shared principles and embedded in a broader strategy of regional cooperation. Similarly, collaboration with platforms can support innovation, but only if conducted with integrity and foresight. By balancing innovation with oversight, ASEAN can build digital markets that are not only dynamic and efficient, but also fair, inclusive, and resilient.
About the writer
Wan Khatina Nawawi is the Managing Director of EconWorks Advisory. She is an economist and public policy consultant with expertise in competition policy, law, and economics; public policy; regulatory economics; and international trade.
About the organisation
EconWorks is a Malaysia-based economic and policy advisory firm providing evidence-based research, competition assessments, and economic and policy consulting. The firm works with government agencies, regulators, and industry stakeholders across Southeast Asia in navigating complex policy and market environments.
