Asian Time Zone

GDP: 304.9 billion US $ (2016 according to WB)

Per capita income (purchasing power parity): US $ 7,400 (2015)

Human Development Rank (HDI): 113 of 189 (2017)

Proportion of poverty (national poverty line): 25.2% (2012)

Distribution of income (Gini coefficient): 43.04 (2012)

Economic Transformation Index (BTI): Rank 33 (of 129) (2018)

– Excerpt from: “Philippines: Economy”, ed. from the Federal Foreign Office, Berlin, November 2016:

“The Philippine economy shows a clear dichotomy: modern electronics industry and a booming service sector on the one hand, poverty and subsistence agriculture on the other. In addition, there is a development gap between Greater Manila (National Capital Region / NCR), which in many places reflects the level of development of an emerging country, and the economically more backward provinces.

According to pharmacylib, the Agriculture still employs around a third of all workers, but their share of the national product is only around 10 percent. Due to the high proportion of subsistence farming, the productivity of the agricultural sector is low. Industry contributes around a third to the creation of the national product. The electronics industry is an important pillar. Electronics and electrical engineering have made up more than half of Philippine exports in recent years. The construction sector, the food and beverage industry and the infrastructure sector are also important growth sectors. The mining sector has recently not been able to build on the positive developments of previous years and is facing major reservations from the current government due to environmental damage. But it has considerable potential:

The service sector has developed into the mainstay of the Philippine economy in recent years and today accounts for more than half of the gross national product. The Philippines are now the world’s second largest outsourcing destination (call center, business process outsourcing) after India. Strong growth rates are expected to continue over the next few years. In the medium term, the increased use of artificial intelligence should limit the further growth of the outsourcing sector in the Philippines.

The direct influence of the state on economic life is limited. Due to the largely completed privatization of the energy sector, state-owned companies hardly play a role in this area either. However, there are extensive restrictions on foreign investors (no ownership of land; in many areas only a minority share of up to 40 percent possible). Corruption and non-transparent tendering procedures for public contracts have in the past put a considerable strain on the business climate for foreign investors. Investors expressly welcome the government’s 10-point economic program, which is expressly intended to remedy this situation. ”

The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) also reports on developments in the Philippines.

Blocked development or new growth potential?

A rich country with a growing number of poor and marginalized people – this is the abbreviation for the economic development of the Philippines in the past decade. Budget deficits, chronic unemployment, lax tax collection from the high-income classes, falling per capita incomes, a widening gap between rich and poor, and rapid population growth. All problems that persist to this day and whose alleviation also did not come from the exiting government under President Benigno S. Aquino III. has succeeded.

International economic organizations and the majority of Filipino economists agree on the crucial point that, despite strong economic growth at times, the gap between rich and poor is widening and that the distribution of income and access to vital resources such as drinking water are extremely unequal. The only argument is about the extent and extent of (absolute and relative) poverty and which criteria are used to determine it. For example, if the World Bank assumes that – contrary to the trend otherwise noted in the region – the proportion of poor is below the 40 percent mark, Philippine analysts put the number at 60 to 69 percent.

“In order to disguise the number of the really poor, 69 percent of our population,” explained Sonny Africa, head of the research department of the Ibon Foundation (see below), in the run-up to the elections in May 2010, “the government quickly changed the criteria for Determination of absolute poverty. This undermines the internationally recognized standards. Only those who have less than 41 pesos (around 80 US cents) a day live below the poverty line. ” Therefore, government figures show only 33 percent of the population as poor. For 41 pesos you can get just one kilogram of rice.

Poverty is particularly a phenomenon in rural areas. By far the poorest province is the autonomous region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which according to the peace treaty signed in Manila on March 27, 2014 with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the “Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro”, will be in a state until 2016 new autonomy should be transferred. In the course of this development, an investment surge was expected in this region. But here as elsewhere, where the guerrillas of the Communist Party (CPP), the New People’s Army (NPA), are active, the unresolved land or agrarian reform remains an Archimedean point of Philippine policy. As long as this is not actually implemented, every government in Manila sees itself with instability.