At the end of each year, as the winter holidays begin to unfold with the promise of family and good cheer, we ask our experts across Asia to reveal what the New Year has in store. And every year, they tell us the same thing: it’s hard to predict the future in the world’s most rapidly changing region.

The last three years certainly helped make that point, as unexpected events on the world stage made our best attempts at futurism seem futile—from Covid-19 in 2020, to dramatic changes in Myanmar and Afghanistan in 2021, to the war in Ukraine, which abruptly shuffled the economic deck for countries throughout Asia in 2022.

But here’s one thing we do know: our “Predictions” edition is consistently a reader favorite. And if anyone has their finger on the future, it’s our astute development experts with their ears to the ground. So here is a selection of 17 predictions for the year ahead in Asia. Enjoy!

Source: The Asia Foundation