Southeast Asian Economics Project

The Southeast Asian Economics Project (SEAEcon) is one of Southeast Asia's most prestigious student-led economics initiatives, headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with presence in Singapore and Greater Jakarta. It serves as an intellectual and policy platform for students across the region to engage with multidisciplinary pluralist economic thinking, bridging global economic theory with the specific socio-political realities of Southeast Asia. The initiative encourages students to synthesize rigorous neoclassical foundations with heterodox perspectives and multidisciplinary insights drawn from law, politics, anthropology, and the broader social sciences.

The Southeast Asian Economics Project was established in August 2025 as the Malaysia Students Economics Project, an informal initiative originally created to address the gap in specialised economics programmes for high school students in Malaysia. Following the 57th ASEAN Economic Ministers' Meeting and Related Meetings in October 2025, the initiative evolved into a regional platform in response to growing interest from students beyond Malaysia, and was officially relaunched as the Southeast Asian Economics Project on February 16, 2026. This relaunch introduced a decentralised, chapter-based model designed to empower students across Southeast Asia to apply multidisciplinary pluralist economic thinking in their own countries and contribute to shaping their own national economic discourse. The Southeast Asian Economics Project was formally registered in Malaysia on February 26, 2026, marking its transition from an informal initiative into a structured organisation.

The initiative operates through a hybrid structure that combines centralised regional coordination with locally driven impact. While the headquarters designs and facilitates major regional frameworks, competitions, and programmes, the initiative is sustained by a network of country chapters. These student-led units adapt regional programming to fit their specific national economic contexts, engaging local communities and addressing country-specific economic challenges through the same rigorous pluralist framework that defines the initiative's approach across the region.

The initiative's activities are organised across four distinct but interconnected pathways, each designed to drive a different mode of student engagement and policy contribution. Through its Competitions and Programmes pathway, the Southeast Asian Economics Project re-engineers proven global formats into immersive, high-stakes economics learning environments where students engage with real policy questions, navigate complex trade-offs, and develop rigorous analytical skills under pressure. Through its Events and Discourse pathway, the initiative designs experiential and interactive convenings where students engage directly with the economic questions defining Southeast Asia today, moving beyond passive observation into active analysis, dialogue, and intellectual exchange. Through its Research and Publications pathway, policy frameworks and analytical outputs that students produce through its programmes are stress-tested and refined by Cengkih Research, the initiative's student-led independent policy think tank, before they are published as rigorous policy briefs and white papers on the economic challenges which Southeast Asia faces at this moment. Through its Workshops and Education pathway, the initiative delivers free workshops at the school and grassroots level for students across Southeast Asia, with a centrally designed curriculum shaped together with economists and practitioners to ensure quality and consistency across the region for students regardless of background.

Through these four pathways, students develop the analytical capacity and pluralist economic thinking needed to engage with Southeast Asia's most pressing economic and policy challenges today, producing original research, policy analysis, and discourse that enters real pipelines and contributes directly to national and regional conversations. The Southeast Asian Economics Project aims to create lasting impact in strengthening social resilience, fostering regional capabilities, and uplifting communities through inclusive growth across Southeast Asia, building the next generation of economic thinkers and changemakers equipped to shape the region's institutions and policies.

The initiative's objectives are explicitly aligned with the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the ASEAN Community Vision 2045, with a particular focus on advancing quality education, reducing inequalities, and building stronger economic institutions across the region. It is sustained primarily through grants and sponsorships, with all funding directed into its programmes and activities across Southeast Asia.