The tertiary industry accounts for a large proportion in the Philippines, accounting for about half of GDP, and the primary and secondary industries also occupy a very important position in the national economy. At the end of 1960s, we adopted the policy of economic opening and actively attracted foreign investment, and achieved certain results in economic development. 1982 is listed as a "middle-income country" by the World Bank. Since then, influenced by the western economic recession and its own political turmoil, the economy has shown a downward trend. After President Ramos came to power in the early 1990s, he took a series of positive measures to revitalize the economy, and the economy began to recover in an all-round way and maintained a high growth rate. 1997 during the Asian financial crisis, the Philippine economy was relatively unaffected. From 65438 to 0999, the Philippine economy gradually began to recover. In 2000, due to the political turmoil, the financial situation of the Philippines deteriorated, the exchange rate hit a record low, and the stock market fell to the lowest level in two years. After President Arroyo took office in 200 1, he promoted economic reform and made great efforts to improve agricultural productivity. Affected by the global economic slowdown and political turmoil, the Philippines only maintained slow growth and its economic trend was sluggish. Foreign trade has declined, foreign investment has decreased, government debt burden has increased, and poverty is still outstanding.

The gross output value of industry and mining accounts for 3 1.9% of the gross national product. The employed population accounts for 15.6% of the total labor force. Manufacturing accounts for about 78.5% of the total industrial and mining output value, construction accounts for about 17.5%, and mining accounts for about 3%. Agricultural output value accounts for 18.9% of GDP.

Main industries:

1. Tourism: Located at the junction of plates, there are many volcanoes with unique volcanic scenery; Linhai, long coastline, yangguan coast, many beaches and islands; Located in the tropics, it has a unique tropical scenery; Unique customs and famous places of interest. Its tourism industry has developed rapidly. For example, famous scenic spots such as Boracay, Mint Island, Luhuo Mountain, Baishengtan, Blue Harbor, Baguio City, Mayon Volcano and primitive terraced fields in Ifugao Province have played a great role in its economic development.

2. Agriculture: there are many volcanoes, rich volcanic ash and fertile soil; Tropical rain forest and tropical monsoon climate, rain and heat at the same time, rain and heat are sufficient; Suitable for developing tropical cash crops, such as bananas and coconuts.

3. Mining industry: There are more than 20 kinds of mineral resources such as copper, gold, silver, iron, chromium and nickel. Copper reserves are about 371600 million tons, gold1360 thousand tons and nickel1270 thousand tons. There are also abundant geothermal resources, and the estimated standard energy is 2.09 billion barrels of crude oil. Oil was discovered in the northwest waters of palawan island from 1976, with a reserve of 350 million barrels. The forest area is 6.5438+0.25 million hectares, and the coverage rate is about 40%. In addition, there are abundant fishery resources. . In recent years, with the development of its resources, it has played an obvious role in promoting the economy.

4. Industry: The coastline is winding, there are many excellent harbors, and the maritime traffic is cheap and convenient, which is suitable for developing and processing export products. The geographical position is superior, and the convenience of maritime transportation has a great impetus to the local economic development.

Problems in recent years:

With the gradual recovery of the global economy, the Philippine economy has shown an accelerated growth momentum since the end of last year. At the same time, the inflation rate in the Philippines has also started to rise. According to the data provided by the Philippine National Bureau of Statistics, the country's inflation rate has been 4% higher for four consecutive months.

Last year, the inflation rate in the Philippines dropped from 9.3% in the previous year to 3.2%, reaching the government's goal of keeping the annual inflation rate within the range of 2.5% to 4.5%. However, in February last year, the inflation rate in the Philippines soared to 4.4%, the biggest increase in eight months.

From June 5438 to 10 this year, the consumer price index in the Philippines increased by 4.3% compared with the same period last year; Although the inflation rate dropped slightly to 4.2% in February, the core inflation rate rose from 3.0% to 3.6%. The inflation rate rose to 4.4% in March, the highest level in the first quarter of this year, but it still did not exceed the inflation control range of 3.9% to 4.8% set by the central bank.

The Philippines maintains a low interest rate policy at this stage. Tango previously said that the Philippines is unlikely to raise interest rates in the first half of this year unless there is an emergency that leads to a rapid rise in inflation. The Philippine central bank's inflation control target this year is between 3.5% and 5.5%. The bank predicts that the annual inflation rate will not exceed 5.5%.

Economists here attribute the rise in inflation in the Philippines to the rise in fuel, electricity and food prices, as well as the shortage of water and electricity supply and the reduction of rice production caused by El Ni? o phenomenon.

Affected by rising international demand and supply shortage, the price of white sugar in the Philippines rose sharply some time ago. In order to stabilize the sugar price, the Philippine government had to import 6.5438+0.5 million tons of raw sugar, put in 6.5438+0.5 million tons of national reserve sugar and encourage private enterprises to increase imports. In addition, the prices of rice, bread, pork and chicken, which are indispensable in people's lives, have also risen to varying degrees.

The quarterly report released by the World Bank in early March predicts that this year's El Ni? o phenomenon will reduce the supply of rice and electricity in the Philippines, which may push up the inflation rate.

According to the data recently released by the Philippine Department of Agriculture, as of March 1, the drought caused by El Ni? o has caused losses of 11200 million pesos (1US$ 45.56 pesos) to Philippine agriculture. The Philippine Department of Agriculture said that the drought has affected 23 provinces. The affected crops mainly include rice, corn and cash crops such as fruits and flowers. Among them, the loss of corn is about 460 thousand tons, worth 6 billion pesos; The loss of rice is about 300,000 tons, worth 5.08 billion pesos. According to the Philippine Food Administration, the Philippines may import 800,000 tons more rice this year than in previous years, and the total import volume will reach 3.2 million tons.

Although this year's El Ni? o phenomenon has caused serious losses to Philippine agriculture, Sendos, director of the Philippine Economic Development Agency, said that the increase in exports and the growth of services and other industries will offset the agricultural losses. Diva, deputy governor of the Philippine central bank? Gurigondo said that the measures taken by the government to cope with the El Ni? o phenomenon, such as artificial rainfall, increasing the supply of small irrigation facilities and increasing rice imports to ensure market supply, will also effectively prevent inflation.

The Philippine government is full of confidence in this year's economic recovery. Santos said that the Philippine economy showed good signs of recovery. In June, 5438+ 10, the export increased by 42.5%, achieving double-digit growth for two consecutive months, the largest increase since April 1995. He predicted that the economic growth of the Philippines in the first quarter of this year will exceed that in the fourth quarter of last year. In the fourth quarter of last year, the economic growth rate of the Philippines was 1.8%, the highest in the whole year.

In order to make the recovered economy rise steadily, the Philippine Ministry of Finance announced an economic stimulus plan of 654.38 billion pesos at the end of March, mainly investing in telecommunications, electricity, water supply and other infrastructure. This year's economic stimulus package is equivalent to 30% of last year's 330 billion pesos.

In addition, the Philippine government will sell bonds to overseas workers at the end of April, aiming at attracting more funds to return to China and providing financing guarantee for the government to develop infrastructure. The number of overseas workers in the Philippines accounts for one tenth of the national population. Last year, their total remittance back to China reached a record $6,543.8+$07.3 billion.

Economic reform and prospect analysis;

Although the international image of the Philippines has always been poor, its economic performance in recent years is quite good, which exceeds people's consistent view of the Philippines. At present, the Philippine economy is experiencing the longest economic growth cycle since 1970. In 2007, the GDP growth rate of the Philippines reached 7? 3%, the highest value in nearly 30 years. All major departments performed well. On the demand side, consumption has always been the main engine of economic growth, and its contribution rate was 65% in 2007. The most encouraging thing is that investment has increased strongly by 9? 5%, while the average growth rate of investment during 1997-2006 was only 0? 8%。 Many researchers attribute the Philippines' good economic performance to the reform measures since Ramos took office: macroeconomic management, trade policy, microeconomic reform and government governance.

First, the main signs of the turning point of Philippine economic growth

Since 2000, the economic development of the Philippines has obviously shown the following four important characteristics, which may partly indicate that the long-term turning point of economic growth in the Philippines has begun to appear.

(a) The economic growth cycle in the Philippines is the longest in the past 30 years.

Since 2000, the Philippine economy has grown at an average annual rate of 5? 1%, far exceeding the average growth rate in the past 20 years. As far as per capita income growth is concerned, it has increased by an average of 2? 5%; Compared with 0 in the 1990 s? 3%, compared with -0 in the 1980s? 8% (figure 1). At the same time, with the adjustment of economic structure, the potential growth rate of the Philippine economy is also increasing.

Historically, the economic growth cycle of the Philippines is unusual.

This economic growth cycle does not depend on the temporary adjustment of terms of trade, nor does it depend on the unbalanced macroeconomic development policy that may lead to the payment crisis. Different from the economic growth in Marcos period, this economic growth cycle mainly benefits from the stability of monetary policy, the relatively strong international balanced payment ability and the cautious return of fiscal policy. In recent years, with the rapid increase of energy and food imports, the foreign trade situation of the Philippines has been deteriorating, but it is against this background that the Philippine economy has maintained a good growth trend. The reform of the central bank and the improvement of the independence and accuracy of monetary policy since the early 1990s are the key factors that determine the Philippines to maintain a long economic growth cycle. The macro-economic policy of the Philippines has passed many tests of financial turmoil at home and abroad with a low inflation rate, mainly benefiting from the strategic guidance of combining inflation targeting with relatively flexible exchange rate control. Prior to this, due to the large-scale fiscal deficit policy and the attempt to adhere to the uncompetitive exchange rate, the balance of payments crisis and the economy fluctuated greatly.

(3) Different from the previous economic growth, the economic growth cycle of the Philippines is a complete positive growth of total factor productivity.

This is regarded as a turning point of total factor productivity, which has been negative or negligible for a long time in Philippine history. Intuitively, this change is quite obvious: GDP has accelerated, but investment and labor have not increased accordingly. In all major sectors of the Philippines, the total factor productivity has been greatly improved, especially in the service sector, which also reflects the importance of the new internationally oriented service industry. For example, the Philippines is the second largest business process outsourcing (BOP) provider in Asia, undertaking business processes from call centers to a series of IT services. Generally speaking, the improvement of total factor productivity in the Philippines is one of the dividends of economic system reform in the 1990s, such as trade liberalization and introducing more competition to non-trade sectors (such as telecommunications and financial services).

(d) International labor remittance has made an important contribution to the sustained economic growth of the Philippines.

In 2007, international remittances from the Philippines reached a record $654.38+07 billion, an increase of nearly 50% since 2004. International remittances have led to a large current account surplus in the Philippines, which partly explains why the peso continued to appreciate in 2007.

At present, international labor remittance has accounted for about 10% of Filipino family income, which has helped more Filipinos get rid of poverty to a great extent. Among developing China countries, Philippine international labor remittance ranks fourth after China, Indian and Mexican, which is mainly due to its good educational advantages and increasingly open international labor market.

Second, the turning point of Philippine economic growth and political and economic system reform.

If the improvement of total factor productivity in the Philippines in recent years is the dividend of the country's economic system reform in the 1990s, then the emergence of the current turning point of economic growth is the concentrated expression of all the achievements of the Philippine political and macroeconomic policy reform. Since President Ramos 1992 came to power, the political and economic policies of the Philippines have changed significantly. After the brief transition of President Estrada, the successor President Arroyo partially continued the reform measures during Ramos' administration and put forward the famous "747 Economic Development Plan", which further promoted the long-term stable development of the Philippine economy.

(A) the economic system reform during Ramos's administration

After Ramos was elected president, he implemented a series of economic reform measures to create a level playing field, democratize the economy, and enhance the degree of competition in the economic system. These reforms improve the openness of the economy by eliminating monopoly, and liberalize and privatize some key economic sectors and behaviors through reforms.

These reforms include: tariff reform aimed at a more neutral tariff policy, privatization of public institutions and private economic participation in energy and infrastructure projects, liberalization of foreign exchange transactions and foreign investment, and deregulation of key industries such as telecommunications, transportation, finance, oil and cement. From the early 1990s to 1997 when the Asian financial crisis broke out, these reforms made important contributions to economic recovery and upgrading. Among them, the reform of trade policy and banking system has the most far-reaching influence.

1? Trade policy reform

The Philippines was the first ASEAN country to adopt the strategy of "import substitution", but it was not until 1985 that the trade policy of the Philippines finally changed to "export orientation". 1987 during the global economic recession, the Philippines suffered huge internal and external pressures of industrial restructuring, which prompted the Philippine government to carry out major reforms in trade policy in the second half of the 1980s, aiming at implementing the strategy of economic opening and export-oriented industrialization. With the goal of a more neutral tariff policy, the Ramos administration has unilaterally and within the scope of regional and multilateral agreements implemented free trade and investment policies in a cautious, gradual and gradual manner. 1997/ 1998 after the Asian economic crisis, although the Philippine trade policy towards specific sectors has changed, the general trend is to implement a more liberal and deregulated trade system. Since the implementation of the tariff reform plan (TRP), the tariff rate in the Philippines has been continuously reduced, which has greatly reduced the deviation within and between departments and industries, thus greatly promoting the opening up of the Philippine economy.

With the credible and gradual change of trade policy, the lower tariff rate has promoted the continuous improvement of total factor productivity in the Philippines. According to the research report of WTO 1999, the Philippines' long-term trade policy reform has made its economy more open and competitive, so it has been less damaged by the Asian financial crisis.

2? Banking system reform

Under the guidance of the economic policy of "more opening and introducing competition", the structure of the banking industry in the Philippines has undergone major changes since the 1990s. Under the background of macroeconomic policy reform and the Asian financial crisis, two important banking management and supervision laws were passed, namely, the liberalization of foreign investment access and the new banking law. At this point, the Philippine banking industry began to change from a closed, static and government-led industry to an open and mainly private sector-led industry.

In banking, access liberalization is a key reform. Since the establishment of new domestic banks in the mid-1960s, the policy of suspending examination and approval has been implemented, and this situation was not changed until 1989. 1993, the access control of commercial banks and their branches was obviously relaxed, while 1995, the relevant access policies were further simplified and unified among banks.

With the passage of the bill. 772l, the policy of suspending the examination and approval of foreign banks, which has been implemented since the establishment of the former Central Bank in 1949, was cancelled in May 1994. The bill allows foreign banks to enter the Philippine banking market through certain channels. At the same time, in order to help domestic enterprises better cope with the competition from foreign banks, the Central Bank of the Philippines has introduced a number of preferential policies to encourage domestic commercial banks to improve their capital adequacy ratio and carry out integration.

Generally speaking, the banking reform in this period has not caused obvious structural changes in the Philippine financial system-the Philippine financial system has always been dominated by banks, especially commercial banks. In fact, the importance of commercial banks is still increasing. However, the financial system dominated by banks is not necessarily bad. The key is whether such a structure is dominated by the market or the result of government regulation.

The "market-oriented" banking reform in the era of President Ramos is reflected in the strategy of the Philippine central bank to promote bank merger to reduce the number of banks and expand the scale of banks, which has promoted the emergence of more large banks of similar scale, thus contributing to the optimization and competition of the banking system. 1997 after the Asian financial crisis, the banking industry in the Philippines did not go bankrupt on a large scale, which was better than that in Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea. To some extent, this is due to the implementation of relevant banking reform policies in the Philippines, especially the progress of prudential supervision of the banking industry.

(2) The political and economic system reform during Arroyo's administration.

After President Arroyo took office, his government faced many political and socio-economic challenges, such as high unemployment rate and serious government corruption. The persistence or even deterioration of these problems not only makes ordinary people feel pessimistic and disappointed about the current situation in the Philippines, but also makes President Arroyo's reputation decline day by day. Facing the unfavorable external political and economic environment, President Arroyo has taken many important measures and decisions since the end of 2002. For example, carry out microeconomic reforms and concentrate on economic development, job creation and poverty reduction; Promote the implementation of the "747 Economic Development Plan"; Committed to establishing a clean and efficient administrative mechanism and eliminating the influence of politics on the economy.

1. Microeconomic Reform and "747 Economic Development Plan"

In terms of microeconomic reform, Arroyo government not only continues to follow the reform orientation of "openness, competition and marketization" in Ramos era, but also puts forward major economic development strategies. The most famous is the "747 Economic Development Plan" and related supporting measures. The "747 Economic Development Plan" requires that the annual real growth rate of Philippine GDP should reach 7% for seven consecutive years from 2004.

Its goal and realization way can be summarized as follows: through microeconomic reform, reduce monopoly, reduce production cost, promote private investment and competition, improve the productivity of various economic sectors, increase employment, reduce poverty, realize all-round economic growth, and make the national economy out of stagnation.

The strategic plan will focus on three aspects: first, mobilize internal or domestic sources of growth; The second is to solve the problems of productivity and efficiency in supply; The third is to carry out microeconomic reforms. Focusing on solving the above three key problems, the planning will focus on doing a good job.

Do a good job in the following aspects:

First, agriculture. Cancel the quota control of rice, sugar and corn and switch to tariff control; Relax the control of agricultural product freight; Building urban and rural roads and providing irrigation support; Strengthen the protection of private property and stimulate more private investment.

Second, industry. Take policy measures to support the development of small and medium-sized enterprises and agricultural products enterprises; Accelerate the implementation of housing development planning and promote housing construction, especially social housing construction, that is, low-rent housing construction; Revitalize the mining industry.

Third, the service industry. Promote the construction of modern transportation system, connect Metro Manila and suburbs, and connect the national transportation network.

Fourth, financing. Maximize the use of overseas development assistance funds and strive to raise corresponding matching funds; Solve the problem of non-performing loans of private sector banks; The tax bureau, customs bureau and the newly established anti-smuggling investigation Committee will be instructed to do a good job in tax collection, and tax evaders will be sentenced to imprisonment.

2. Political system reform

In 2003, the Philippines passed the Government Procurement Reform Act of 2003. This reform unified all the relevant procurement laws and regulations of the Philippine government, and began to use the "Government Electronic Procurement System" (GEPS version of the Philippines), allowing private and non-governmental (NGO) observers to participate in the government procurement process. Therefore, the good legislative provisions and policy design of this reform make it show better integrity and transparency. In fact, this is only part of the political system reform of Arroyo government. President Arroyo has been committed to the reform of the political system since he took office. Among them, a key reform is the discussion of constitutional amendment. On June 30, 2004, Arroyo was sworn in as president, and made constitutional amendment one of the top ten tasks during his six-year term.

On August 2 1 2005, the "Consultative Committee" led by the Presidential Palace was established and put forward four suggestions for constitutional amendment: the political system was changed from presidential system to parliamentary system; And then transformed into a federal * * * and state structure; Economic policy liberalization; The 2007 election was cancelled, and the term of office of all serving government officials was extended from 2007 to 20 10. Although so far, the constitutional amendment movement is far from successful.

However, in the process of promoting constitutional amendment, the current Philippine government has promoted many political system reforms, such as electoral reform measures to eliminate the influence of family forces on politics. These reforms have fundamentally promoted the development and realization of true democracy in the Philippines, thus contributing to the economic and social development and progress of the Philippines. After 2004, the World Bank's evaluation of most governance indicators of the Philippine government began to show signs of improvement.

To sum up, there are indeed some gratifying trends and signs in the economic development of the Philippines. However, it is still difficult for us to judge whether the Philippine economy has a long-term turning point based on these signs. The economic growth rate and sustainability of the Philippines are not comparable to those of China, Viet Nam and other countries, nor are they comparable to those of the "Four Little Dragons" in Asia. In fact, the economic system and political reform in the Philippines still have a long way to go. How to promote the reform in microeconomic and financial fields, promote the backward infrastructure construction and eliminate the interference of family politics and government administrative corruption are all urgent issues for the Philippine government to consider.

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