Trust-Led Growth: Unlocking Digital Opportunity Across the Asia-Pacific, and Around the World

The Asia-Pacific region is a powerhouse of digital growth. Its potential is immense — fueled by a dynamic population, groundbreaking innovation, and a vibrant exchange of cultures. Nowhere else in the world does creativity and technology intersect at such scale and speed. At the 2025 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in Korea, TikTok joined government and industry leaders from the 21 economies in the Pacific rim to discuss how digital platforms are helping build a more connected and prosperous future, and the critical role trust plays in fostering innovation and growth.

Every day, we see on TikTok how this region turns ideas into industries, and passions into livelihoods. For example, a young entrepreneur in Manila finds her first customers in Singapore. A student in Seoul teaches millions through a single creative spark. A musician in Jakarta becomes a global sensation from his bedroom.

On TikTok, it doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, or who you know. If your content resonates, you can find community and opportunity. These examples capture the vitality of this region and why trust in this digital ecosystem matters more than ever.

Trust-Led Economic Growth

Our mission at TikTok is to inspire creativity and bring joy. Trust is what allows participation to flourish. It’s what lets creators share openly, businesses grow confidently, and communities connect across borders. And this trust is turning into real-world economic impact across the Asia-Pacific region, and the world.

To better understand and quantify that impact, starting in 2023, we began commissioning independent Economic Impact Reports across key markets.

Even we were struck by the staggering results. For example, in Japan, in 2024, TikTok contributed $3 billion to the economy and supported 26,000 new jobs. And in Southeast Asia, over 20 million businesses and 4 million creators are actively selling on TikTok Shop.

As we highlighted at the 15th Concordia Annual Summit this fall, that scale is also mirrored around the world. In 2023, TikTok platform contributed $24.2 billion to the U.S. GDP, and our aggregate contribution to the Mexican economy in 2024 amounted to $2.26 billion US Dollars, supporting over 58,000 jobs.

More than 200 million people across Europe come to TikTok every month, with enterprises on TikTok adding €4.8 billion to the economies of Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands and Belgium and supporting more than 51,000 jobs. Across the Middle East & North Africa, over 8 million creators earned money through TikTok LIVE in 2024. And advertising and marketing on TikTok has added over $2.7 billion to Brazil’s GDP while supporting 35,000 new jobs.

Change Makers

TikTok is much more than a place for entertainment; it’s a powerful engine for economic mobility and cultural access throughout the APEC economies. We call the people driving this change Change Makers.

They are the embodiment of the digital future we are discussing. They turn creativity into real-world impact. Some of these incredible creators recently joined us at APEC:

• Dany Orsan from Mexico is a pastry chef who isn’t just sharing recipes, she’s inspiring and fueling hundreds of home-based food businesses across her country.
• Ryssi from the Philippines, a single mother who built a career through TikTok LIVE, demonstrates the power of authentic connection to create a stable future.
• Shanti Grossman from the United States, who founded ‘A Brighter Year,’ successfully combined e-commerce with mindfulness and mental wellness through TikTok Shop.
• And from the host country of Korea, Dr. Howoo, a physician who shares health knowledge and cultural insights in an authentic, relatable way, making vital information accessible to millions.

These are the businesses, educators, and artists we support. To protect their success, and to ensure this opportunity remains open to everyone, we have to ensure we are building a safe and inclusive digital ecosystem.

At TikTok, we recognize that trust cannot be assumed—it must be earned every single day through our actions, our transparency, and our partnerships. Building a digital ecosystem that people feel safe participating in requires more than just policy statements; it demands consistent investment, collaboration with local experts, and product design that is grounded in user well-being. We are deeply committed to local partnerships, as seen in Korea, where we recently partnered with the Blue Tree Foundation, a local non-profit dedicated to social change, and Tacteen Naeil, an organization focused on youth safety. This collaboration has allowed us to integrate expert advice into our safety features, provide digital literacy training, and establish new counseling channels directly within TikTok’s Safety Center.

Transparency

Globally, our commitment to safety is backed by transparency. Our most recent Community Guidelines Enforcement Report shows the scale of our work: in the second quarter of 2025 alone, we proactively removed over 150 million videos for violating our Community Guidelines. Crucially, 99% of those videos were removed before a user even reported them, and more than 90% were removed before getting a single view.

We strive to maintain a community where kindness and respectful dialogue thrive. We explicitly prohibit hate speech, discrimination, and behavior intended to harass or degrade others, and we enforce these rules equally across the board. We are also continuously innovating to protect our community members with safety settings built into the teen experience. We introduced new features in our Family Pairing tools that give parents more ways to guide their teens’ experience while they’re on TikTok. In addition to screen-time limits, parents can now adjust visibility settings, manage the topics their teens see more or less of, and use blocking controls to limit unwanted interactions. These updates are all about helping families create healthy digital habits together and encouraging ongoing conversations about how to navigate the online world safely and confidently.

This is not just a list of features; this is our framework for intentional governance. Its how we ensure that the digital ecosystem is built not just for scale, but for trust. This robust foundation is what allows us to deliver tremendous economic and cultural opportunity. When users and businesses trust the platform, they participate more deeply, unlocking local creativity on a global scale.

Global Phenomenon

Nowhere is this more visible than in the global phenomenon of K-Culture. K-pop needs no introduction, but beyond music, Korean culture is thriving on TikTok in food, drama, and beauty, driving massive commerce: the popular dish Gimbap went completely viral, causing a nationwide sell-out at a major grocery store chain in the U.S. after gaining rapid traction on TikTok.

And in beauty, a Korean brand currently ranks #1 on TikTok Shop U.S. TikTok is dedicated to creating a joyful shopping experience where our community can discover and buy merchandise they love with confidence that they are getting an authentic product.

Our Commitment

Our commitment extends far beyond our own platform. We believe in working with you — our partners across the APEC economies and international organizations and institutions — to ensure this digital opportunity is inclusive and safe for all.

This involves joint efforts on digital literacy and financial empowerment. For instance, we recently joined the International Trademark Association’s Unreal Campaign, an initiative to empower young shoppers with the knowledge they need to make mindful purchasing decisions and understand the serious risks linked to counterfeit goods.

In Singapore, we launched a digital parenting initiative in support of the country’s Digital for Life movement designed to guide parents and their teens on fostering responsible digital citizenship and social media readiness.

Our collective future, here in the Asia-Pacific and globally, depends entirely on the ability to build a trusted digital ecosystem.

We are fully committed to being a leader in that effort. As we look at this engine of global digital growth, the path forward is clear: it must be paved not just with innovation, but with trust. Our work at TikTok—from protecting our youngest users in Korea, to supporting entrepreneurs in Mexico, and empowering creators all over the world— is rooted in the belief that trust is the ultimate enabler of all economic and cultural opportunity.