Caixabank has just published the Third Edition of its Index for Business Internationalization (ICIE 2019), an Index in which this Spanish bank examines 67 countries from the perspective of five keys that in its opinion are essentials for any internationalization process, such as: accessibility, commercial attraction, financial environment and stability. Yet in this latter case, it does not point out whether this stability is either political or legal, and does not mention security, as important as stability.
According to the results of this search, if we take into consideration first the different regions, we see that Southeast Asia is fourth in the rankings, after Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Central and Western Asia and the Americas; and if we take into account afterwards the different countries, we observe that Singapore is ranked 35, Thailand 48, Malaysia 49, Indonesia 51 and Vietnam 52, between France, the United Kingdom and the United States in the first three places, and Equatorial Guinea, Angola and Sri Lanka in the last three.
It is noteworthy that the Philippines does not appear in this list, despite the important ties that this country and Spain maintain on a regular basis; and that the places of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam are, if not at the bottom of the list, at the lower part of it. There is obviously room for these countries to improve their current ranking and at least reach India, which is in the middle of the list, given the potential of their economy, their present levels of growth and the progressive interest of Spanish companies for them.
