One of the questions frequently discussed this year by economists has been the surprising resilience of global economic growth and trade dynamics to the unprecedented shocks of rising protectionism and unilateralism in the world economy. With respect to economic growth performance, Gita Gopinath, the former IMF’s Chief economist, outlined a number of factors, including the AI investment boom, wealth increases driving consumption (also thanks to AI), and government spending being more generous[1]. In our view, global trade benefited from these factors supporting economic activity as well as a number of other developments, including the rising role of digital economic agreements (DEAs) and digital trade. Indeed, this year witnessed important milestones in digital economic diplomacy that are likely to deliver important impulses to economic openness in the coming years.
Among the advanced economies, Singapore is a clear leader in advancing the propagation of digital economic agreements across the world economy. It has concluded digital economic agreements with partners such as Australia, the UK and Korea, while also championing regional digital initiatives within ASEAN[2]. In 2025 Singapore continued to push the digital economic agenda forward concluding talks with some of the key regional blocs on the launching of digital economic agreements. In particular, in September 2025 Singapore signed a DEA accord with EFTA. According to the EFTA official website, the DEA “builds on the EFTA–Singapore Free Trade Agreement, which entered into force in 2003”, with the digital accord establishing “clear and predictable rules for digital trade between the EFTA States and Singapore” [3].
Earlier in mid-2025 Singapore signed a digital trade accord (DTA) with the EU. According to the EU press release, the agreement (that is yet to be ratified) “will enhance consumer protection, facilitate trusted cross-border data flows and provide legal certainty for businesses that want to engage in cross-border digital trade, as well as addressing unjustified barriers to digital trade[4]… The DTA will prevent protectionist practices and policies by prohibiting unjustified data localisation measures… [serving] to ensure trusted cross-border data flows and the protection of source code against unauthorised disclosure[5].
With Singapore being an uncontested leader in the advancement of digital economic agreements across countries, ASEAN is in pole position in the digital race among the regional blocs. In October 2025 ASEAN reached a crucial milestone in its digital development by announcing the substantial conclusion of talks on an ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA). This digital accord is expected to be signed in 2026 with ASEAN’s digital economy expected to reach USD 2 trillion by 2030 on the back of the agreement’s implementation[6]. Among its key areas, the ASEAN DEFA seeks to advance digital economic cooperation in digital payments, data privacy and cross-border data transfer[7], with this ASEAN regional framework potentially providing pathways to similar regional accords in the digital sphere to be pursued by other regional blocs[8]. ASEAN has also committed to implementing digital rules under e-commerce Chapters of ASEAN-plus agreements that include the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the recently upgraded ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA (AANZFTA)[9].
Beyond the EU-EFTA-ASEAN triangle, digital cooperation expanded in other regional integration arrangements as more regional blocs strive to enter into the top league of digital development. One of the cases in point is the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)[10] that concluded an agreement with the Digital Cooperation Organization (DCO) in 2025[11], while in mid-2025 the UAE, one of the digital leaders in the GCC bloc, launched its Digital Economic Partnership Agreement (DEPA)[12] accession process[13]. In November 2025 during the Second Meeting between the Committee of Permanent Representatives to ASEAN (CPR) and the GCC Ambassadors’ Council in Jakarta, the two regional blocs singled out the digital economy as one of the key/priority areas of mutual economic cooperation[14].
In our previous publications, we have highlighted the possibility of OASES economies (Oriental Republic of Uruguay, Austria, Switzerland, Emirates (UAE) and Singapore) and their respective regional integration arrangements building a network of trade and digital alliances, with the digital agreements concluded in 2025 providing further momentum to the emergence of these platforms[15][16]. Such networks of digital economic/trade accords may in turn serve to further multilateralize digital and trade treaties at the level of regional blocs, with DEA accords expanding the coverage of FTA agreements to the sphere of digital economy. This in turn may lead to the emergence of mega-regional formations in the sphere of trade and digital cooperation, whose weight could potentially impact the evolution of global agreements, particularly in areas where multilateral coordination through global organizations is either absent or weak.
For BRICS economies, the developments in DEA accords in 2025 point to the need to prioritize digital economic agreements within the BRICS+ network in the coming years, with a particular emphasis being placed on exploring the potential modalities of building regional DEAs as well as “RTA-to-RTA” digital economic accords. With ASEAN leading the current upward momentum in the development of such digital agreements and with greater cooperation between BRICS and ASEAN throughout 2025[17], the coming years could present a unique opportunity for BRICS+ to narrow the “digital gap” for the economies of the Global South.
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7400562205710241792/
[2] https://www.mti.gov.sg/trade-international-economic-relations/agreements/digital-economy-agreements-dea/
[3] https://www.efta.int/media-resources/news/efta-and-singapore-sign-digital-economy-agreement-joint-communique
[4] According to the press release, this includes “the protection of privacy and personal data, customs duties on electronic transmissions, electronic contracts, electronic authentication and trust services, online consumer trust, unsolicited direct marketing communications, open government data, and regulatory cooperation on digital trade”.
[5] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_1152
[6] https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/10/asean-defa-digital-economy-pact-negotiations/
[7] https://asean.org/asean-economic-community-council-statement-on-the-substantial-conclusion-of-the-asean-defa-negotiations/
[8] https://brics-plus-analytics.org/asean-summit-expands-pathways-to-economic-cooperation/
[9] https://www.mti.gov.sg/trade-international-economic-relations/regional-and-international-platforms/association-of-southeast-asian-nations-asean/asean-digital-integration/
[10] https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/087/2025/003/article-A001-en.xml
[11] https://gulfnews.com/business/analysis/digital-plans-in-gcc-shift-from-talk-to-action-in-new-pact-1.500271779
[12] DEPA was launched in 2020 by Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore and created a framework for digital trade cooperation with the aim of lowering barriers in the digital economy
[13] https://neweconomy.expert/news/259427/
[14] https://asean.org/asean-the-cooperation-council-for-the-arab-states-of-the-gulf-reaffirm-commitment-to-enhance-relations/
[15] https://brics-plus-analytics.org/scenarios-for-mega-regional-agreements/
[16] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394452058_OASES_as_an_International_Platform_for_Economic_Cooperation
[17] https://brics-plus-analytics.org/indonesia-becomes-a-full-fledged-brics-member/
https://brics-plus-analytics.org/assessing-the-potential-of-the-brics-partnership-circle/
Yaroslav Lissovolik, Founder, BRICS+ Analytics
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