This book is an attempt to understand socio-economic development in contemporary Brunei Darussalam, which highlights the country’s journey in diversification from the dominant oil and gas sectors. The book makes an important contribution to the handful of publications on Brunei and fills in the absence of a comprehensive analysis on socio-economic issues in Brunei.

The publication of this book comes at an important era of the twenty-first century, as Brunei is on its halfway mark towards its Vision 2035. The goal of economic diversification remains vital to Brunei’s long-term economic growth but, at the same time, is dramatically shifting toward a more varied structure of production and trade with a view to creating jobs, increasing productivity, and improving the resource efficiency of infrastructure and quality of life.

This is a reference book for students, academics, entrepreneurs, policymakers within and outside Brunei, as well as for general readers who are interested to know about the socio-economic conditions in contemporary Brunei.

The book is a product of the Centre for Advanced Research (CARe), under the leadership of former Director Dr Chang-Yau Hoon; in collaboration with the Institute of Policy Studies, under the leadership of Director Dr Mahani Hamdan; and with the support of colleagues from various faculties at Universiti Brunei Darussalam. As a premier empirical research centre at UBD, CARe has three missions: first is to develop research and data resources that address social issues in Brunei. Second is to be a platform for local and international interdisciplinary research collaboration. And third is to provide professional training to graduate students, university staff and researchers from various sectors. This book is a collective effort to address these missions at CARe.

This book would have never been possible without the strong dedication of the authors and conducive research environment provided by Universiti Brunei Darussalam. We are indebted to the unflagging support of the Vice Chancellor of UBD, Dr Hazri bin Haji Kifle; and the current Director of CARe, Dr Siti Mazidah binti Haji Mohamad. We would like to express our appreciation to the editorial team at ISEAS Publishing for providing us with constructive comments on the draft of the book and their willingness to co-publish it with UBD.