If you are a garment manufacturer and want to sell your upmarket hooded sweatshirt in Indonesia, you are probably on to a good thing.
While 82 per cent of the population in southeast Asia’s largest economy earns less than $4 a day, according to Standard Chartered bank, there is a growing segment of young consumers who have enough disposable income to afford the 800,000 rupiah ($68) pricetag for must-have gear like this.
The story is the same across much of the 10-member bloc known as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), which includes Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and the countries of the Mekong region.