Following a survey of more than 6,000 business leaders, the Philippines has been named the best country to invest in this year.
According to the US News & World Report, the Philippines has continued to perform well in attracting foreign direct investments (FDIs) to its economy. This is based on UN data and is despite the overall declining inflows of such investments across Southeast Asia in general.
The summary of the survey’s findings said: “In years to come, the country is expected to receive more FDI from within the region from powerhouses like China that are looking to utilise available labour in developing nations.”
In identifying the best nations to invest in, US News focused on the following factors: entrepreneurship, economic stability, favourable tax environment, innovation, skilled labour, technological expertise, dynamism and corruption.
It then used responses from 6,000 business decision makers from around the world to determine the ranking.
The Philippines, a country which has a young population of 103.3 million, registered a gross domestic product growth of 6.9 per cent in 2016. Its total GDP stood at about $304.9 billion in the same year.
The administration of President Duterte has unveiled an ambitious infrastructure plan aimed at modernising and improving the country’s roads, ports and airports.
A new taxation regime was introduced at the start of this year in an effort to raise funds that would finance its infrastructure and social services programmes.
The second-best country to invest in was named as Indonesia, which US News said was one of the most promising recipients of FDIs in the region.
At number three was Poland, whose economy according to the World Bank will continue to be in a good shape despite the turbulence of Brexit and the refugee crisis, US News said.
Completing the list of the five best countries to invest in were Malaysia and Singapore.
US News said Malaysia, at number four, had a highly-skilled workforce and a pro-business government.
Singapore meanwhile positions itself as an intellectual hotbed, with educated citizens and strong intellectual property law.
Also making the top ten were Australia (6), Spain (7), Thailand (8), India (9) and Oman (10).
US News also listed the Czech Republic, Finland, Uruguay, Turkey, Ireland, Netherlands, the UK, Brazil, France and Chile as some of the other best destinations for FDI this year.
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