Battery Recycling: Can Southeast Asia Become the "New Battlefield" for the Global Trillion-Dollar Track?

Southeast Asia is a region with a population of 600 million and sustained economic growth, yet the car ownership rate is still below 20%. In recent years, the automotive consumer market in Southeast Asia has been growing steadily, with Japanese and European vehicles, which once dominated the market, gradually being replaced by Chinese vehicles. Multiple Chinese automakers, including SAIC, BYD, Great Wall, Geely, Changan, Neta, and Wuling, have already established sales networks in Southeast Asia and are planning or have already built factories there.

As the core framework for global efforts to combat climate change, the Paris Agreement has set clear emission reduction targets for Southeast Asian countries. Against this backdrop, Southeast Asia is accelerating its transition from traditional internal combustion engine vehicles to EVs. With the rapid rise of the NEV market in Southeast Asia, EV sales in countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam have surged, leading to a sharp increase in the number of retired power batteries. This has presented unprecedented development opportunities for the battery recycling industry. Therefore, the battery recycling industry is gradually becoming a key pillar for Southeast Asia's green transformation.

In this context, from June 12-13, 2025, SMM will host the 2025 SMM 2nd Global Recycled Metal Industry Chain Summit Forum in Thailand, where it has invitedDusit, Advisor to the Chairman of the Thai Ministry of Industry, Chen Wenkai, Chairman of the Malaysian Non-Ferrous Metals Association, Sujin Kim, Global Business Development Director of BatX Energies, Yadea Technology Group Co., Ltd., and Nicholas Assef, President of the Battery Industry Recycling Association of Australia,among others, to participate in the sub-forum - the Battery Forum. They will conduct in-depth analyses of the opportunities and challenges in Southeast Asia's battery recycling market amidst policy dividends, supply chain disruptions, technological gaps, and capital games, from multiple dimensions such as strategic layout of battery recycling, market supply chain dynamics, and system improvement paths. This will provide enterprises with full-chain solutions ranging from policy positioning to technological breakthroughs, and from capital closure to channel bottlenecks.