Why Philippines could be the only bright spot in ASEAN right now

But there are some concerns.

According to BNP Paribas, not only is the Philippines’ GDP growth the highest in the region, over the past year or so it has de-coupled from the rest of Asia. Moreover, such growth has clearly not been financed by government spending.

Here's more:

The Philippines’ GOVERNMENT debt as a proportion of GDP has declined over past couple of years from 68% to 41%. It’s one of the few countries in Asia to run a fiscal surplus.

A structural surplus, diversified export base and better governance (‘no corruption, no poverty’) prompted an upgrade in the Philippines’ credit rating last year, and we see no reason to expect things to deteriorate anytime soon.

Our only concern about the Philippines is that the surge in GDP growth has not been accompanied by an increase in investment growth, implying that the Philippines could run into supply side constraints. Since the early 2000s, investment as a proportion of GDP has declined from 25% to c20%.

Still, on balance, the Philippines looks a lot better than Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and India. Currency depreciation over the past three months (PHP down 6.7%) looks to be more due to contagion than fundamental factors.

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia