Investigating ASEAN’s Participation in Global Value Chains: Production Fragmentation and Regional Integration

This paper focuses on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)—a major final assembler in production—where studies and evidence on the role of the region in global value chains are limited. We seek to provide new evidence regarding the extent and patterns of international fragmentation in ASEAN. To do so, we derive the foreign value-added shares of final products for all global value chains of ASEAN. Using the Asian Development Bank’s multiregional input–output tables for 2000–2017, we document a series of stylized facts. The results show declining foreign value-added shares in ASEAN. Regional economic integration within ASEAN has increased, while value-added contributions vary widely across its members. We find evidence of increasing value-added contributions from emerging economies to ASEAN, whereas the contributions from advanced economies have declined.