Manila seen to be 9th fastest-growing Asia-Pacific city in 2018-2022

While the growth of Metropolitan Manila’s economy is expected to slightly slow down in the next five years, it will be the ninth-fastest across major cities in the Asia-Pacific region, UK-based Oxford Economics said.

In the report titled “Asia-Pacific Cities and Regions Outlook: Indian cities dominate new growth forecast,” Oxford Economics economist Mark Britton projected Manila’s annual gross domestic product (GDP) expansion to average 6.4 percent for the period 2018 to 2022.

The 2018-2022 growth forecast for Manila was only behind Bangalore’s 9.6 percent, Hyderabad’s 8.1 percent, Ho Chi Minh City and Delhi’s 7.9 percent, Mumbai’s 7.8 percent, Kolkata’s 6.9 percent, and Chennai’s 6.8 percent.

While sharing the same 6.4-percent growth projection with the Philippines’ capital, Chinese cities Tianjin was ranked eighth while Guangzhou placed 10th.

During the period 2013 to 2017, Manila’s GDP growth averaged a faster 7.2 percent, Oxford Economics said.

India

In the past five years, Manila’s average GDP expansion ranked a lower 11th place, behind Bangalore’s 10.8 percent; Tianjin’s 9.6 percent; Shenzhen’s 9.3 percent, Guangzhou’s 9.1 percent; Chengdu and Ho Chi Minh City’s 9 percent; Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai’s 7.7 percent; and Hyderabad’s 7.6 percent.

According to Oxford Economics, Bangalore ranked first due to “significant financial and business services activity” in the city.

“Across the wider region, we expect the significant growth disparities between cities to persist over the medium term. Ho Chi Minh City is the only non-Indian city to feature in our top five, with Tianjin, Manila and Guangzhou the others outside India to make the top 10. China’s two megacities, Beijing [11th] and Shanghai [12th], are also expected to see strong growth, but just miss out on top 10 status,” Oxford Economics said.

More advanced cities

“Among the more advanced economy cities, there are few standout performances. Perth [17th] and Brisbane [18th] lead the Australian cities, while Melbourne [19th] continues to outperform Sydney [22nd]. Singapore [21st] is forecast to outpace Hong Kong [24th], although by a smaller margin than in the recent past,” Oxford Economics added.

“Japan’s large cities are again set to struggle at the bottom of our growth rankings, with Osaka, where the demographic outlook is particularly challenging, projected to experience the slowest GDP growth of all 33 cities in our forecast,” according to Oxford Economics.

Osaka’s GDP was projected to contract by 0.2 percent during the period 2018-2022, while the cities of Tokyo, Kawasaki, Yokohama and Nagoya were expected to grow below 1 percent.