Philippines needs to grow 7% yearly to hit high-income status by 2050 — World Bank

The Philippines’ ambition of a poverty-free society by 2040 would require an annual growth rate of 7% to 10% “sustained over decades, on account of better integration into the global marketplace and faster productivity growth,” according to the World Bank. GMA INTEGRATED NEWS FILE PHOTO

THE Philippines is seen to join the ranks of high-income countries in the next 25 years provided it sustains an economic growth rate of about 7 percent yearly, backed by reforms that would increase investments and job generation, according to the World Bank.

The Washington-based multilateral lender released its Philippines Growth and Jobs Report on July 15, which detailed its observations on the country’s employment and economic developments in the past 15 years or since 2010.

At an event in Makati City, World Bank lead Gonzalo Varela said that the Philippines has doubled its gross domestic product (GDP), accelerating at an average of 5.3% from 2010 to 2023.

The report, however, said the country’s ambition of a poverty-free society by 2040 would require an annual growth rate of 7% to 10% “sustained over decades, on account of better integration into the global marketplace and faster productivity growth.”

Varela said that “without decisive reforms, the Philippines risks stagnating in a cycle of slow expansion and limited job quality.”

The World Bank economist, citing the report, said the country needs to implement 12 priority reforms grouped into three pillars:

Foundational investments in infrastructure and human capital

* Sustain public investment with a focus on connectivity infrastructure

* Support private climate adaptation by removing bottlenecks and prioritizing resilience

* Boost human capital by fast-tracking implementation of Enterprise Based Education and Training Act, and scaling up STEM and digital skills to better address AI challenge

Better regulations and governance

* Ensure regulations catch up with infrastructure progress to maximize investment impact

* Remove de facto barriers to market entry to make openness reforms work

* Facilitate land consolidation to enable productivity-enhancing reallocation in agriculture

* Adopt a proportional contribution system for part-time work to boost female labor force participation and correct talent misallocation

* Negotiate and implement deep trade agreements that drive domestic reform and global integration

* Implement competition-enhancing reforms in energy, logistics, and telecoms to cut costs for tradable sectors

* Strengthen local service delivery by building LGU capacity and aligning incentives

Private capital mobilization

* Introduce supplier development programs to link SMEs with multinational corporations and large firms and close the productivity spillover gap

* Focus innovation support where conditions are ripe, consolidate programs for scale, and create room for deeper venture capital markets

Varela said that if the set of recommended reforms were fully implemented, it could kick the country’s GDP up by 1.4 percentage points or could increase the annual growth rate to 6.8%, create 5.1 million additional jobs, and boost wages by 12.9% by 2040.

If the GDP growth rate of 6.8% is sustained until 2050, the World Bank economist said the Philippines economy could be brought “to the verge of high-income threshold.”

For fiscal year 2026, the Philippines remained a lower middle-income country with a GNI per capita of $4,470, just $26 shy of hitting its ambition of elevating to upper-middle income status, which was set at a range of $4,496 to $13,935 GNI per capita. (GMA Integrated News)

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