Philippines economy on the move

Driving through the rush hour traffic of the Philippines’ largest city this morning was a somewhat harrowing experience.

As my cab driver dodged the large Jeepneys (colourful and heavily-chromed Philippino buses) along with all manner of other motoring flotsam and jetsom, I was reminded of just how crazy busy the Asian road systems can be.

Yet like much of Asia, despite the mayhem, the majority of drivers seem to survive, as do the economies.

And although in my limited experience of Asian economies it may appear at first that the Philippino ‘economic miracle’ has stalled somewhat, there is still plenty of building going on.

There are some unfinished apartment buildings in downtown Manila that according to my cab driver, have stopped building indefinitely. He said the cause of this was manyfold but one of the biggest problems was that some builders had failed to fulfil their taxation requirements.

However, there are also many newly-completed large apartment and office buildings in central Manila – which shows things may actually be a lot better than I had first thought.

The new airport link road, which includes several huge concrete flyovers and will eventually give City motorists direct and efficient access to Manila airport, is now well-underway.

A very impressive project, the flyover is according to the cab driver, being built with a combination of Philippino and Chinese know-how – suggesting things may actually be much better economically here in the Philippines than I first thought.