Philippines is top emerging economy—French firm
MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines is among the top countries with “emerging economies,” a French credit body said in its latest economic publication.
Compagnie Française d’Assurance pour le Commerce Extérieur (COFACE) cited the Philippines as a country with high growth potential and the most favorable prospect of increasing production capacity in the years to come.
COFACE said the Philippines is also considered to have the most favorable business climate.
Other countries recognized as top emerging economies include Peru, Indonesia, Colombia and Sri Lanka replacing Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
The criteria used by COFACE to determine the new emerging economies include intermediate level of per capita income (above that of less advanced economies but below that of advanced economies); higher GDP growth rate than most advanced economies; and major institutional transformations.
“This piece of economic good news comes at the heels of the report that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had raised its 2014 economic growth forecast for the Philippines to 6.5%, up from its January projection of 6.3%. Standard and Poor’s (S&P) also raised its growth projection for the Philippines to 6.6% for 2014,” DFA said in a statement Friday.
The IMF and S&P are leading providers of global credit benchmarks, policy advice and research to foster economic development and growth around the world, while the COFACE is the French credit rating agency which publishes quarterly risk assessments for 160 countries.
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