Best places to live, work: Philippines moves up to 24th

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines has made it to the big leagues alongside the United States and China in terms of best places in the world to live and work.

A Forbes article cited the 2019 HSBC Expat’s annual survey that ranked the Philippines as the 24th best place to live and work, while the US ranked 23rd. China, on the other hand, ranked 26th.

The survey was conducted among 18,000 expats across 163 markets. Three major metrics were used: living, career opportunity and family life.

“The Philippines jumped up the rankings from 26th place last year. That may come as a surprise to some for a couple of reasons. One of them is that the Philippines has a reputation for sending its own people overseas in droves rather than attracting foreigners who want to live and work there,” Forbes said in the article published July 6.

Forbes said Manila garnered a high ranking despite being mired in violence amid President Duterte’s drug war.

“Apparently, that isn’t what foreign expats are concerned about. They find it easy to relocate to a country of friendly people and a reasonable cost of living,” Forbes said.

“With its tropical climate and steadily growing economy, the Philippines is quickly becoming one of the most popular expat destinations in Southeast Asia,” according to the HSBC report.

The Philippines, once dubbed as the sick man of Asia, has been enjoying strong growth over the past year, consistently buoyed by overseas Filipino remittances, the booming business process outsourcing sector and the strong services sector.

“Indeed, the Philippine economy has been booming in recent years. The Philippines’ per-capita GDP was last recorded at an all-time high of $3,063 in 2018, according to Tradingeconomics.com,” the Forbes article added. “It’s expected to reach $3,277 by 2020. That’s well above the average of $1,653.98 for the period 1960 to 2018,” the article continued.