PHILIPPINES: a market on the rise

Among the ASEAN countries, the Philippines is on the rise, along with Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam, and is among those that offer the most interesting opportunities for Italian companies from an internationalization perspective. The country, which not coincidentally falls within the so-called Next Eleven, or the eleven emerging markets identified by Goldman Sachs as having the highest growth potential, could become the largest economy in Southeast Asia by 2050 and the 14th largest globally by the same year.

With a population of about 104 million (the second largest market in terms of population in ASEAN, after Indonesia), some political stability, the implementation of major reforms by the government, and a robust economy, the Philippines has been on an important growth path for some years now: in 2012 GDP grew by a little over 6% and in 2013 it is expected to remain stable and reach 6.2%.

The local population's high propensity to consume (domestic consumption accounts for 70% of the national GDP) is a formidable growth driver for the Asian country to continue on this path; in addition, the Philippines is highly dependent on imports, as it is not yet able to rely on a developed industry and first-rate technological capacity.

The business opportunities are enormous and are registered in a wide variety of sectors: building materials, electronics, renewable energy, food processing machinery, information technology, telecommunications, tourism, apparel, agribusiness, franchising, residential construction, business processing outsourcing services represent just a few of the potentially explosive sectors for made-in-Italy companies.

Manlio Urbano

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