Jakarta. American investors have coined a new nickname for Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines — the “VIP Club” — reflecting what they see as the three ASEAN economies with the strongest growth potential.

Marc Mealy, executive vice president of research and chief policy officer at the US-ASEAN Business Council, said member companies have increasingly focused on the trio over the past several years.

“Over the last four or five years, these three ASEAN countries have been the ones that USABC members have seen the most growth potential,” Mealy told the Jakarta Globe on Monday. “When companies ask where the next generation of growth is, the ‘VIP’ is the club we’ve seen the most interest in.”

Asked whether Indonesia could emerge as the top destination among the three, Mealy said Indonesia has outperformed its peers in certain areas, but Vietnam currently holds an edge due to its advanced trade policy framework.

Vietnam has secured more bilateral trade agreements than any other ASEAN member, including a deal with the European Union — an agreement Jakarta is hoping to conclude by May. The Philippines and the EU only recently agreed to resume negotiations.

Such trade pacts allow US companies to access wider markets through their Southeast Asian operations. Mealy also pointed to Vietnam’s long-term investment in human capital as a key differentiator.

“They have made big investments over the last decade in producing high-quality, highly skilled talent,” he said. “That has made the Vietnam ecosystem much more attractive for high-tech investment.”

Still, Mealy said American firms have given Indonesia high marks for its natural resource endowment — particularly nickel, a critical input for electric vehicle batteries. Indonesia was once primarily a nickel ore exporter before imposing a ban on shipments of unprocessed ores, a move that has helped position the country as “a key international node in the global supply chain for EV battery components.”

Mealy urged Indonesian policymakers to prioritize regulatory certainty.

“Do regulations that create more certainty and lower costs,” he said. “If you do those things, that can be a big source of advantage for Indonesia.”

Later on Monday, Tirta Nugraha Mursitama, Senior Advisor for Investment Equity and Partnership at the Investment Ministry, welcomed the “VIP Club” label but stressed that competitiveness goes beyond rankings.

“Indonesia is in a phase of rising and bouncing back from the pandemic. One important thing is to improve confidence in the domestic market and resources, including human capital,” Tirta said at the Jakarta Globe Club.

“It’s also about finding the leeway, making investors happy to do business here, while the government’s goal is to create good jobs. It’s something that takes step by step.”

Tirta added that the government is working to make Indonesia more investor-friendly by cutting bureaucratic red tape and pushing ahead with plans to extract more value from its commodities — an effort open to both domestic and foreign investors.

“We know that we might still need to revise some regulations and streamline here and there. But the fundamentals are there,” he said.

According to ASEAN data, the bloc attracted $42 billion in US investment in 2024.

With nearly $3 billion in direct inflows, the US ranked as Indonesia’s sixth-largest foreign investor last year, including almost $2.2 billion directed into the mining sector, the government reported.

Among the VIP economies, Vietnam posted the fastest growth in 2025 at 8.02%, followed by Indonesia at 5.11% and the Philippines at 4.4%.

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