PH champions in export growth in Asia

Photo: GreenArcher04/Flickr.com

Despite international criticism being gained by the Philippines due to the current administration’s intensive and aggressive approach to drug use and trafficking, the Philippine economy still displays promise.

UK-based Oxford Economics listed the Philippines as one of the “winners” in the Asia-Pacific region, citing that its export growth has “strongly outperformed” global demand in the last seven years.

In the March 27 report entitled “Asia Globalization Winners and Losers Trade Places”, Oxford Economics named the Philippines, China, India and South Korea as the top countries in the region where “robust gains in productivity and/or moved up the value chain, gaining global market share in the process” in a span of seven years since 2010.

According to Oxford Economics’ data, the Philippines had enjoyed a yearly export rate of 7.8 percent which exceeded India’s 5.4 percent, South Korea’s 5.3 percent, Indonesia’s 4.1 percent, Malaysia’s 3.7 percent, Australia’s 3.2 percent, Singapore and Thailand’s 2 percent and Taiwan’s 1.4 percent.

Meanwhile, economic powerhouses Japan and Hong Kong had experienced a decline of 2 percent and 8.5 percent respectively in the course of the same seven-year period.

“Our winners—the Philippines, India, South Korea and China—are economies that since 2009, have enjoyed robust growth in manufacturing exports and seized global market share in the process. Our gold star performers are economies that mostly started from modest levels of development and wages and generated robust gains in productivity and/or moved up the value chain due to structural changes and reforms,” Oxford Economics said.

Oxford Economics also cited that in the case of the Philippines and Malaysia, the two economies had ventured in continuing to operate with lower costs and increasing foreign investments. In ASEAN’s top 6, the Philippines saw the increase of job-generating foreign direct investment and gross product increase since 2010.

It has been predicted that India and the Philippines will continue to experience strong growth given the relatively low cost of production.

India and the Philippines still remain  the top two most preferred outsourcing destinations given its relatively low cost of operation.