KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 17 — Big data can support over US$100 billion (RM446 billion) worth of opportunities in Southeast Asia, particularly across the five focus countries, namely Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Thailand, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
In its newly launched report titled ‘Harnessing the Potential of Big Data in Post-Pandemic Southeast Asia’, ADB said the use of digital technologies to provide personalised and remote learning, as well as online job matching could contribute US$77.1 billion (RM343.8 billion) annually to the gross domestic product (GDP) of these Southeast Asian countries by 2030.
Similarly, it said, the use of analytics to direct highly targeted health interventions for at-risk populations could lead to an increase of US$15.5 billion (RM69.1 billion) in GDP of these countries by 2030.
“The application of remote monitoring systems could bring US$9.4 billion (RM41.9 billion) in annual cost savings to the healthcare system of these Southeast Asian countries by 2030 through reduced hospital visits, length of patients’ stays and medical procedures,” it said in the report launched today.
According to the report, big data refers to datasets whose size is beyond the ability of typical database software tools to capture, store, manage and analyse.
The report is the last of four reports from a regional study completed in 2021 and funded by the technical assistance of ADB on policy advice for Covid-19 economic recovery in Southeast Asia.
The focus countries are Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Thailand, which tapped ADB’s Covid-19 pandemic recovery option facility.
Meanwhile, ADB advisor and head of economic research and regional cooperation department’s statistics and data innovation, Elaine Tan said to ensure that governments could roll out more timely and fine-tuned policies, particularly amid the current challenging environment, they could make good use of the data collected from their agencies.
“I think a great potential in big data is in fact from within the government, and its administrative data which is collected by different government agencies.
“If they can integrate them into one common database, that would create a great potential to identify the need of the people quickly as well as in formulating policies (more accordingly),” she said at a webinar held in conjunction with the launching ceremony.
Tan also noted that to determine a policy or programme, a government should make the decision based on the aggregated data derived from a sum of individual behaviour, instead of just focusing on an individual behaviour alone.
— Bernama
