KUALA LUMPUR: Southeast Asia presents a lot of untapped opportunities for investments, says the United Arab Emirates Minister of Investment Mohamed Hassan Alsuwaidi.

He said Southeast Asia may make up for 15-20% of the share of portfolios of sovereign wealth funds investing in the region.

“When you look at the investable markets today, I believe Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and India have been the most active in pursuing foreign direct investments,” he said during the 2025 Fortune-Asean-GCC Economic Forum here on Wednesday (May 23).

He said the Emirates is also interested in working with other countries to look for new opportunities.

Majority of the UAE’s investments in the region are predominantly in the energy, oil and gas sectors and also to an extent the transport and logistics, he said.

“I don't think we have done enough in terms of financial services, retail or real estate or concessions based infrastructure. I think these are the opportunities that Asia has to offer,” he said, adding that the private equity and capital markets are another space to look at.

On Asia as a whole, he said the challenge comes in the form of a mismatch of opportunity.

"If you ask CEOs of sovereign wealth funds where they would want to invest their portfolio mix, they would say I want to invest in Asia but I don't have enough deals," he said.

"I think where we struggle today is we see that the opportunity is huge but we struggle with the mismatch of the opportunity and how it presents itself. The risk reward that we see between the US and European markets versus the risk reward we see in these Asian markets is mindboggling,” he said.

"The same type of project for probably three times the risk has a lower return in other parts of the world. Navigating that is a big challenge,” he added.

He said the primary focus for the UAE is on deploying capital in a large scale rather than going after smaller transactions, adding that the Emirates is working closely with governments and private investors.