While 2023 was a slowdown year for the sustainable bond market worldwide, the Asean+3 region (the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus China, Japan and South Korea) slowed down less than most. Thanks mainly to higher interest rates, global sustainable bond issuance declined from $896.1bn in 2022 to $846.2bn last year, or a 5.9 per cent drop, according to the Asian Development Bank’s Asia Bond Market March 2024 report.
But the Asean+3 region saw only a 1.4 per cent decline in sustainable bond issuance year-on-year in 2023, allowing the region’s share of the world’s market to inch up from 27.4 per cent in 2022 to 28.6 per cent in 2023. Sustainable bond issuance in Asean+3 totalled $242bn in 2023, only slightly below the eurozone’s $288.8bn.
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