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And in near future they won't be able to compete with India.
In their geography it's brutally tough.
China's electricity cost is cheap so no wonder.
Clock is ticking for Philipine vs India. India has what it takes, especially population size, to replace China. Same like China, started poor with 1 billion people and nothing, and this turned into the world factory. Once India is at least set to achieve this, the door closes for Philippines to grab from China and any small growth outside there goes in the other countries that are smaller but competitive like Indonesia, Vietnam and others. India is already getting started in their 'make in India' campaign which will keep eyes off questionable manufacturing candidates.
Part of the geography problem is the mountains I said about. Mountains are stunting growth of cities and again, Cebu seems totally out of space. All they can put up now are houses on a mountain. lol
OSoutheast Asian countries are trapped in low quality democracy. They can't improve their infrastructure. Their governments spend more time in corruption than doing good. Their education isn't improving. They do not have a strong industrial foundation. They mostly make money out of tourism, agriculture. Their people to go Hong Kong and mainland China and be house maids. They protest, protest, protest, but change never comes. Most of these countries have no self esteem. Basically being used by the USA as a military base and pleasure castles for American soldiers.
In fact, they aren't even as good as Japan and Germany in ruins after the war. In Germany and Japan, they had a tradition of making fine goods, high value technology. They had workers, intellectuals, engineers, who understood how to build a successful economy out of war rubles. This foundation is almost non existent in much of Southeast Asia. You can give them a tropical paradise and all they can come up with is stuff like mandarin oriental, the shang gri la resort, and spa houses full of middle aged women. The women's husbands drive under market cabs while watching out for cops.
The cop stops one man's cab. No need to talk. The driver offers 100 bucks. The cop slowly put aside his cigarette, let out the smoke. He counts the money. What? 100 bucks? Are you retarded?
Sorry, sorry. Here is another 100 bucks for you sir. The cop counted and said "now that's a good citizen, or else I will find your wife. " he signaled to the driver. Go go go. I said go. Did your dad teach you how to drive? Get the hell out. Next.
Last edited by Costaexpress; 07-15-2015 at 09:35 PM..
OSoutheast Asian countries are trapped in low quality democracy. They can't improve their infrastructure. Their governments spend more time in corruption than doing good. Their education isn't improving. They do not have a strong industrial foundation. They mostly make money out of tourism, agriculture. Their people to go Hong Kong and mainland China and be house maids. They protest, protest, protest, but change never comes. Most of these countries have no self esteem. Basically being used by the USA as a military base and pleasure castles for American soldiers.
The USA quit the Phillippine bases 20 odd years ago, and the Thai bases after the Vietnam War ended. Sex tourism there is much more the fault of Euros than Americans.
No wonder Philippines is so backwards. Look what I just found out. philippines energy consumtion is the same as typical poorer african nations! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ion_per_capita
between the countries covered in this survey, 16 countries in Africa beat Philippines and only 9 countries were actually bellow it!
It was not until comparing africa to Philippines that I started to realise that people there are so desperate for a reason. And only now I learn that the country is actually on a level economically matching Africa's overall. It surprising because noone would think the Philippines was in that bad a shape. Unlike Africa, it has so many more certain opportunities than does Africa. But I guess the high birth rate, higher than Africa's and the strangely low level of manufacturing and industrialization, also lower even than some African countries is what offsets and true benefits from the industries it does have.
I just read about electricity rates. Philippines is already the most expensive country in Asia for electricity, already writiing it off as a potential candidate for manufacturing and is heading for the most expensive eletricity in the world at the rate they are going.
Also it seems like both Manila and Cebu are suffering from a land crisis. Based on the population density, both need industrial land for the respective cities as big as the cities themselves already are. But they are completely squashed between mountains and the sea with no room for industrial sites. All the land in Metro Manila is already taken up and what is left beyond this is mountains that form an impenetrable barrier against industrial expansion. Undustrial zones require huge expanses of land and Manila and especially Cebu hardly even has a nook left between the crowds and the mountains to stick one factory inside. Also the ports are already to capacity with no room to even expand them because that too is all ocupied. They are hardly even into talks regarding how to find space for ports, much less ready to open some. So I think total saturation of land, port space and plus the high electricity cost is stunting the country madly.
spot on. the govt removed all energy subsidy long time ago so basically the electricity rate is based on market. that's the reason the govt have very little deficit ratio.
land is actually abundant if you go just hundred kilometers north or south of Metro Manila. even in the environs of Metro Manila, vacant lots are abundant, just look beyond the first buildings/houses that line the highways, its all vacant lot. the thing is, land is expensive so its not cost effective to build factory.
in fact, the former military bases are vacant, with complete freeways or ports/airports. but the wages are just not for manufacturing low cost products
cheap wages/land can only be found if you go beyond 100km of Metro Manila or in the southern Island of Mindanao
Philippines does not need to export manufactured goods, it already has a thriving market for another good; it's people.
Nursing, medicine, healthcare, domestic service, primary and secondary education, etc... The Philippines sends thousands abroad yearly destinations all over the eastern and western worlds.
Heatlhcare and education are two of the biggest exports. Walk into hospitals from the United States, UK, Middle East, and to now even Germany and you will find Philippine nurses, doctors, pharmacists, nursing assistants/aides and others.
As with many other migrant workers those Philipine workers abroad send funds back home, which in turn is pumped into the local economy.
spot on. the govt removed all energy subsidy long time ago so basically the electricity rate is based on market. that's the reason the govt have very little deficit ratio.
land is actually abundant if you go just hundred kilometers north or south of Metro Manila. even in the environs of Metro Manila, vacant lots are abundant, just look beyond the first buildings/houses that line the highways, its all vacant lot. the thing is, land is expensive so its not cost effective to build factory.
in fact, the former military bases are vacant, with complete freeways or ports/airports. but the wages are just not for manufacturing low cost products
cheap wages/land can only be found if you go beyond 100km of Metro Manila or in the southern Island of Mindanao
Maybe that high cost of land is why the small strings of factories begin way down there, far south of Metro Manila.:
Yes it is true there is lots of open land, but I am sure you mostly noticed that south of Manila right? notice on the below map how there are barriers everywhere except the south. The north has a very unorganized mix of low density land ocupation that only worsens chances for Manila making more room for industrial zones because for dozens of km going north, you have people who put up houses and enterprises spread out so much to extend well north of Manila, but not spaced widely enough to mix in industrial zones. The mountans to the east act as a total barrier. And nearest swath of extensive land north of Manila is actually a flood plain. Laguna bay just so happens to act as an addition barrier to the SE:
Cebu looks even worse and is a sardine case! I am certain they are almost completely out of land there!
Here you can see the line indicating where the mountains begin, essentially cutting off any large scale expansion of anything there. Pretty much all the land in the cebu area between the sea and the mountain barrier is already ocupied and people have already long moved up onto the hills. Cebu has millions of poor packed in and no room to put them to work in industrial zones.
With how restricting things are, Philippines is not at a population advantage any better than Laos, a tiny country of a handful of a million! The population size might have actually started working against itself as Manila gets filled in from ocean all the way to mountain with just hoards of people, and industrial opportunities squeezed into far less populated corners. Most of the 102 million are not even in city areas at all! A country can't power itself into an industrial powerhouse if its population size is 3 times that of Canada, but can only set up industrial zones in the catchment area of a population that pales in number to Quebec! I should raise another point. The population in close proximity to the available industrial zones, comprises of a much higher proportion of the middle and higher class compared to pretty much every other chunk of population in the country. So the huge swaths of poor that area pretty much everywhere else that are needed are out of reach anyways. It is QC Pasig, the core of Manila, Rizal and the entire NW quadrant of metro Manila among others that have the masses of poor AND the insane population densities of the metro area that are the suitable demographic to be situated by manufacturing zones, but are really way to isolated from them.
I got another interesting thing to point out. I read an article saying actual population of the Philippines is much higher than official estimates or figures. They would put it at about 110 million (taking into account curent year) accounting for expected unregistered peopled, especially ones in rural locations. POPULATION EXPLOSION: PH RATES AMONG THE HIGHEST / 2013: 105 MILLION
Total Population of the Philippines 2013 (105 M)
We must also be aware of the total number of unregistered children/people in the Philippines (especially those who are living on the very remote areas in the Philippines). Therefore, the estimated figure might be lower than the real total number of population of the Philippines.
Last edited by Santaronto; 07-30-2015 at 07:07 AM..
Philippines does not need to export manufactured goods, it already has a thriving market for another good; it's people.
Nursing, medicine, healthcare, domestic service, primary and secondary education, etc... The Philippines sends thousands abroad yearly destinations all over the eastern and western worlds.
Heatlhcare and education are two of the biggest exports. Walk into hospitals from the United States, UK, Middle East, and to now even Germany and you will find Philippine nurses, doctors, pharmacists, nursing assistants/aides and others.
As with many other migrant workers those Philipine workers abroad send funds back home, which in turn is pumped into the local economy.
I do thnik you are missing a point though. We can aplaud the Philippines for the things you said it has, and this is what the Philippines is taking advantage of now. And meanwhile, look at what the situation is still going forward:
clearly the result is not good enough!
Indoneia which is pretty much like the Philippines but even more crowded starting in manufacturing and look how its worst areas compare. Not so bad after seeing the first one!
Point is, doing everything under the rainbow except manufacturing, while having a population surging well past 100 million is a recipe for disaster.
What in the world is going so wrong with the Philippines that it can't even step foot in the world of exporter manufacturing like every single other well populated country? and why does noone even seem to want to consider it?
Did you know that the Philippine Islands are, well, islands?
One missing component that will transform the PH is graft. If they get a handle on their corruption, they can go far, until then, they will continue to be the best international working force for the money.
Another is restrictive ownership laws. Basically, you need to be a Filipino citizen or a very large multinational corporation to own facilities, directly employ people, and actually conduct business in an efficient and meaningful way. If you're some guy from the U.S. with a few hundred grand and a dream the Philippines is a significantly harder place to get started than many other countries similar to it.
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