• The Philippines is primarily considered a newly industrialized country, which has an economy

in transition from one based on agriculture to one based more on services and manufacturing. As of
2017, GDP by purchasing power parity was estimated to be at $1.980 trillion.[31]

• Primary exports include semiconductors and electronic products, transport equipment,

garments, copper products, petroleum products, coconut oil, and fruits which has a value of $68.712
billion on the year 2017. Major trading partners include Japan, China, the United States,
Singapore, South Korea, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Germany, Taiwan and Thailand. The
Philippines has been named as one of the Tiger Cub Economies together with Indonesia, Malaysia,
Vietnam, and Thailand.

Import goods include electronic products, mineral fuels, machinery and transport equipment, iron
and steel, textile fabrics, grains, chemicals, plastic which has estimated value of $96.093 billion
(2017). Philippines main import partners are China, Japan, United States, Thailand, South Korea,
Singapore, Indonesia.

• The Philippine economy is projected to be the 5th largest in Asia and 16th biggest in the
world by 2050.[32] According to the PricewaterhouseCoopers, it estimates that it will be the 12th to
14th richest economy in the world by 2060. While this opposes other reports from HSBC Holdings
PLC, that by the year 2050, the Philippines will have been stated to surpass the economy of
Indonesia due to its yearly higher GDP growth rate of 6.5% (Second, after China).

• As a newly industrialized country, the Philippines is still an economy with a large agricultural
sector; however, services have come to dominate the economy.[citation needed] Much of the
industrial sector is based on processing and assembly operations in the manufacturing of electronics
and other high-tech components, usually from foreign multinational corporations.

• Filipinos who go abroad to work–-known as Overseas Filipino Workers or OFWs—are a

significant contributor to the economy but are not reflected in the below sectoral discussion of the
domestic economy. OFW remittances is also credited for the Philippines' recent economic growth
resulting in investment status upgrades from credit ratings agencies such as the Fitch Group and
Standard & Poor's.[104] In 1994, more than $2 billion USD worth of remittance from Overseas
Filipinos were sent to the Philippines.[105] In 2012, Filipino Americans sent 43% of all remittances
sent to the Philippines, totaling to US$10.6 billion.

Agriculture in the Philippines

• Agriculture employs 30% of the Filipino workforce as of 2014. Agriculture accounts for 11%
of Philippines GDP as of 2014. The type of activity ranges from small subsistence farming and fishing
to large commercial ventures with significant export focus

The Philippines is the world's largest producer of coconuts producing 19,500,000 tons in 2009.
Coconut production in the Philippines is generally concentrated in medium-sized farms. The
Philippines is also the world's largest producer of pineapples, producing 2,458,420 million metric
tons in 2013.

Rice production in the Philippines is important to the food supply in the country and
economy. The Philippines is the 8th largest rice producer in the world, accounting for 2.8% of global
rice production The Philippines was also the world's largest rice importer in 2010. Rice is the most
important food crop, a staple food in most of the country. It is produced extensively in Luzon
(especially Central Luzon), Western Visayas, Southern Mindanao and Central Mindanao.
The Philippines is one of the largest producers of sugar in the world At least 17 provinces located in
eight regions of the nation have grown sugarcane crops, of which the Negros Island Region accounts
for half of the country's total production. As of Crop Year 2012-2013, 29 mills are operational divided
as follows: 13 mills in Negros, 6 mills in Luzon, 4 mills in Panay, 3 mills in Eastern Visayas and 3 mills
in Mindanao A range from 360,000 to 390,000 hectares are devoted to sugarcane production. The
largest sugarcane areas are found in the Negros Island Region, which accounts for 51% of sugarcane
areas planted. This is followed by Mindanao which accounts for 20%; Luzon by 17%; Panay by 07%
and Eastern Visayas by 04%.

Tourism

• Tourism is an important sector for the Philippine economy, contributing 7.8% to the
Philippine gross domestic product (GDP) in 2014.

Boracay, one of the country's top tourist destinations

• The tourism industry employed 3.8 million Filipinos, or 10.2 per cent of national
employment in 2011, according to data gathered by the National Statistical Coordination Board. In a
greater thrust by the Aquino administration to pump billion to employ 7.4 million people by 2016,
or about 18.8 per cent of the total workforce, contributing 8 per cent to 9 per cent to the nation's
GDP.[141]

• In 2014, the tourism sector contributed 1.4 trillion pesos to the country's economy.

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ANALYSIS: Why many in the Philippines are poor

Jose Galang — Your Business

Posted at Apr 19 2018 09:51 PM

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More than 4 in 10 Filipinos who are poor actually have jobs. They continue to struggle with poverty
because they are employed in poor-quality jobs that pay less than what their counterparts in
manufacturing industries get.
But as a growth driver for the country’s economy, manufacturing lags behind the services sector,
including wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, real estate, tourism,
financial and insurance, health and social work, and public administration and defense.

This structure is a result of the unconventional development path that the Philippines has followed
in seeking to modernize its old agriculture-based economy by leapfrogging to services without first
establishing a steady foothold in manufacturing that could have turned out more higher-value
products from farm output.

As a result, the economy is now led by a services sector that provides largely low-end, low-paying
work to the nation’s jobseekers. Other countries around the Philippines followed the traditional
growth pattern, building labor-intensive, export-oriented manufacturing industries that absorbed
workers shifting out of agriculture before expanding to services.

The challenge now for Philippine economic managers, according to the latest Philippine Economic
Update (PEU) report, "Investing in the Future," produced by the World Bank Manila Office, is to
attract more investments into manufacturing industries that not only create more jobs but also tend
to have longer-lasting operations that contribute to stability. To be sure, steady economic growth for
more than three decades now appears to have reduced poverty in the Philippines. But because it still
is among the highest in Asia, poverty continues to be a major challenge.

Vulnerable to high inflation

These days, an accelerating pace of inflation, triggered in large part by the government’s imposition
of new taxes on a myriad of products and services, can only be expected to hit the poor most.

Why many in the Philippines are poor?Yan ang sagot po.

Agriculture in the Philippines

• Agriculture employs 30% of the Filipino workforce as of 2014. Agriculture accounts for 11%
of Philippines GDP as of 2014. The type of activity ranges from small subsistence farming and fishing
to large commercial ventures with significant export focus.