Innovation-enabling regulation for the digital economy

As innovative technologies continue to advance, digital policy is evolving at speed – creating a complex and fast-changing regulatory environment for businesses. This report was commissioned by Meta and explores the economic opportunity of fostering innovation-enabling policy in the APAC region, defined as policy which is principled and evidence-based, collaborative and adaptive, and aligned with international best practice while reflecting local market context.

Through the modelling of outcomes in three APAC focus markets: Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Korea, these principles are used to assess potential economic opportunities in six key areas of digital policy - data and privacy, cross-border and digital trade, competition policy, platform governance and moderation, e-commerce, and AI governance. The report finds that innovation-enabling regulation could unlock $63 billion in benefits by 2035 across the three markets – equivalent to around 1% of GDP on average. Beyond GDP gains, these reforms could also generate more employment as well as an average real wage increase of 0.9% by 2035. This report also identifies key opportunities to facilitate innovation-enabling regulation, helping to ensure the regulatory landscape supports adoption and provides business certainty while also protecting users.