The Philippines has emerged as one of the top markets for future business expansion by US companies with operations across the 10 member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), according to a new study.
The 2017 Asean Business Outlook Survey found that the Philippines is the third country, after Vietnam and Indonesia, to elicit the biggest jump in interest among US firms in the region that have plans to expand within the economic community in the future.
About 27 percent of the 519 US senior executives polled this year indicate that their companies are thinking of expanding into the Philippines, up from 20 percent in 2015, according to the report published by the US-Asean Chamber of Commerce and the American Chamber of Commerce in Singapore.
Vietnam continues to be the top priority market, as the number of American businesses expecting to expand into the country went up from 31 percent in 2015 to 40 percent in 2016. Indonesia is in second place with 38 percent, up from 31 percent. After the Philippines, other countries raising strong interest among US enterprises include Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia.
The paper said the respondents cite a variety of reasons for their expansion plans, such as to diversify their customer base, leverage the availability of trained personnel and capitalize on reasonable production costs.
The majority of respondents (63 percent) also report that their companies will be expanding in their current countries of operation. About 70 percent of those polled say they expect to beef up their local operations in the Philippines in the future. Executives in Myanmar almost universally expect to expand (9 percent), followed by Vietnam (80 percent), and Lao PDR (75 percent). Other countries with high scores in this area include Indonesia (68 percent) and Cambodia (65 percent).