SINGAPORE - China, the country with the world's largest population and second-largest economy, has dominated Asia's economic landscape for 20 years.
But its great success has overshadowed another impressive economic story: The rise of South-east Asia – a region that is set to come into its own over the coming decade, with a particularly compelling digital economy.
I find both regions to be culturally and economically inspiring – and believe more businesses from each can achieve global success in the decade to come. But to do so, they will need to navigate an increasingly unpredictable financial environment.
China is well placed, having built a massively complex and successful economy within three decades. Its leaders intend to keep expanding its economic opportunities, as the recent 20th Communist Party of China National Congress underscored.
South-east Asia boasts its own potential. It stretches across more than 4.4 million sq km and is heavily populated. More than 622 million people live in the region's 10 countries, making up one of the world's largest and youngest workforces.
Put together, these two regions offer investors and financial institutions alike a huge array of possibilities.
Complexity and Covid-19
We have long been convinced of the importance of South-east Asia, in addition to China.

UBS opened its first office in Singapore more than 50 years ago and now operates across five countries in South-east Asia: Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore.
However, South-east Asia has never captured the imagination of Western investors the way China or India have. This is in part because of its relative complexity as a spectrum of economies and political systems, each with their own cultural identities, economic strengths and idiosyncrasies.
The onset of Covid-19 in early 2020 only added to global investors' caution. Just as China closed its borders, several South-east Asian economies restricted internal and external travel in an effort to limit the spread of the virus.
Today, the world has largely emerged from pandemic-related restrictions, yet South-east Asia remains outside the central focus of many Western investors' thinking.
But this is set to change.
To begin with, South-east Asia has almost entirely removed Covid-19-related restrictions, leading to renewed intra-regional trade and tourism, and bolstering its economies.
And while its combined gross domestic product (GDP) of US$3.36 trillion (S$4.6 trillion) at the end of 2021 was less than one-fifth the size of China's, it is predicted to grow by 5.2 per cent in 2022.
And it could well expand at around 5 per cent a year for the remainder of the decade, while China's GDP is projected to grow at a slower annual pace of 4 per cent to 4.5 per cent.
Demographic dividend
One particular factor supports our belief in South-east Asia's prospects: its demographic dividend.
The region is home to approximately 500 million working-age people, most of whom are young and eager to improve their lives.
In Indonesia, the median age in 2021 was 29.7 years. In neighbouring Philippines, it was just 27.7. In contrast, the median age in China was 38.4 years, and in the United States, it was 38.8.
South-east Asia's young workforce is obviously hungry to succeed, and this will drive more wealth creation. The Asian Development Bank agrees and has predicted that 65 per cent of the region's population will enter the middle class by 2030.
The robust demographics of the region have already benefited many sectors. Looking forward, the opportunities available in the new economy, particularly, stand out.
Unicorn evolution
For several years now, technology-related companies across the world have used innovative online solutions to disrupt stodgier traditional service providers across the US and Europe.
South-east Asia has proven to be particularly fertile ground for this trend: more than 100 million individuals across Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam came online over the past three years alone.
This has helped to bolster demand for goods and services via mobile phones and the Internet.
With Covid-19 lockdowns now a thing of the past, South-east Asia's expanding middle class will continue to increase their use of digital economy services. The UBS telecom, media and Internet research team is particularly confident about the digital economies of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
The combined market demand of the six countries' fintech (excluding digital payments), e-commerce, food delivery, ride on demand, over-the-top media and mobile gaming, online education and online travel industries will be worth US$248 billion by the end of 2022.
We expect it will rise to US$783 billion by 2030 – expanding by 215 per cent in just eight years.
Such rapid growth should bolster the ranks of the unicorns in the region. Several of these private technology companies, valued at more than US$1 billion, have already listed on stock exchanges to great acclaim.
One recent example is Bukalapak, an e-commerce app company based in Jakarta, Indonesia. UBS supported its award-winning initial public offering (IPO) on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in August 2021.
Other South-east Asian tech successes include gaming and shopping company Sea, which listed in 2017, multinational ride-hailing company Grab, which debuted on Nasdaq in 2021, and Indonesia's largest tech company GoTo, which raised US$1.1 billion through its IPO in March.
Successful connections
China's sophisticated, gigantic economy combined with the fast-evolving nations of South-east Asia offers a breadth of business opportunities unlike anywhere else on earth. Buccaneering businesses will keep emerging from the likes of Chongqing, Jakarta, Manila and Shanghai.
However, these aspiring corporate champions will be far more likely to succeed if they can gain the support of smart financial advisers, thoughtful investors, and high-net-worth sponsors.
This is where I see international financial services firms and investors playing a key role.
Successful new economy companies, whether based in China or South-east Asia, can identify how to use digitalisation to meet local needs. But turning a clever concept into reality requires financial support from business and financial partners who combine local know-how with global experience.
They can offer technological backing, regulatory and legal advice, and investment banking capabilities to help companies navigate increasingly complex rules and restrictions, and turn upstart digital players into internationally renowned enterprises.
The economies of China and South-east Asia will continue evolving. We intend to support this change, and help connect today's top global investors with tomorrow's regional corporate champions.
• The writer is UBS group chief executive.