Philippines projected to land among top 20 economies by 2050

MANILA, Philippines — A unit of Fitch Solutions projected the Philippine economy would carve a larger share of global gross domestic product by 2050 aided by the country’s industry sector and growing population.

BMI, a Fitch Solutions company, included the optimistic outlook in an emailed commentary on Wednesday. 

The projection hinged its bets on a growing population and efforts to develop economic sectors such as manufacturing.

The new report said emerging markets, including the Philippines, would post sharp growth between 2023 and 2050. GDPs generated by developing nations would rise from 42.8% this year to 56.5% by 2050. 

For context, data from the Philippine Statistics Authority in 2010 pegged the country’s population, characterized by a young demographic, would balloon to 142 million by 2045.

Government officials have been touting the country’s demographic dividend would eventually pay off and reward the economy with a working-age population that would fuel economic growth.

Manufacturing, among other economic subsectors, has kept the domestic economy churning even throughout the pandemic. For one, cheap labor has reaped benefits for producers despite headwinds. 

Institutions, like the Asian Development Bank, always turned to this sector to generate growth for the Philippine economy.

That said, BMI lumped the Philippines alongside other emerging economies like Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Vietnam as countries that would break into the world’s 20 largest economies by 2050.