PETpla.net Insider 09 / 2017

EDITOUR PET planet Insider Vol. 18 No. 09/17 www.petpla.net 18 Tour Sponsors: Soft drinks on the up; the issue of logistics PET in the Philippines by Kay Barton When you think about the Philippines, you can’t help but think of sunny islands and palm- lined, idyllic beaches and, indeed, some of the most luxurious resorts in the world can be found here. While tourism is an important part of the economy it is not the most prominent one; this country of many islands is undergoing an exciting economic transformation. Con- tinuous growth, increasing per capita income, ambitious plans to improve infrastructure and simplification of bureaucracy are leading the Philippines’ drive to entice both domestic and foreign investors to an attractive location in South East Asia. Positive results can be seen in the machine and systems industry, including the world of PET-bottled beverages. Although the Philippines had not been on the original plan for our South East Asia Tour, we decided to make a detour to Manila and Cebu and to talk with some market experts about recent developments. Get in touch with… economy & infrastructure With 7,107 islands, the Philippines is the fifth largest island nation in the world. The country is divided into 81 provinces, over 18 regions. The archi- pelago stretches 1,850km from north to south and almost 1,130km from west to east, making a total surface area of over 300,000km 2 . Broadly, the country is divided into three groups, with Luzon in the north, Visayas in the middle and Mindanao in the south. Luzon and Mindanao are the two larg- est island groups. The eleven larg- est islands make up around 94% of the total land mass; their combined coastline amounts to 35,000km – the longest of any nation in the world. The 320km wide Luzon Strait in the north joins the South China Sea in the west to the Philippine Sea in the east, and to Taiwan to the north. In the south-west, the Sulu Sea sepa- rates the Philippines from Malaysia. Mindanao is on the northern shore of the Celebes Sea, with Sulawesi and the Indonesian Malaku Islands on the south. Papua New Guinea lies further away, to the south-east. The entire territory of the Philip- pines is located in the northern trop- ics, between the equator to the south and the tropic of Cancer to the north; its average temperature across the year is over 26°C. The population reached approximately 104.2 million people in 2016; it is resident on only the largest one-fifth of the islands, according to current estimates. The larger proportion of the population is spread across the northern islands; more than one-tenth live in the greater Manila metropolitan area, on the main island of Luzon. It includes both the capital, Manila City, and Quezon, the largest city. As in many South East Asian countries, the population is predominantly young; its average age is 23.4 years. The Ethnologue lists no fewer than 184 current spoken languages in the Philippines; Filipino – a standardised version of Tagalog – and English are the official languages, used in government, education, print, broadcast media, and business. How- ever, English is not spoken widely outside the cities. The influence of the USA, since the country formally declared independence from Spain in 1898, is responsible for both the extent of English as and for the hint of American accent in speech. Economic growth of almost 6.5% in recent years makes the Philippines one of the most exciting markets in South East Asia. This rapid growth is fuelling a high demand for invest- ment and consumer goods, lead- ing to growth in imported goods. Purchasing power is supported and expanded by transfers from Filipinos working abroad, who sent home over US$25bn in 2015. This trend is fore- cast to continue in coming years. This emerging nation remains strongly split into poor and rich populations. The northern island of Luzon is relatively advanced and boasts a modern electronics indus- try; the southern island of Mindanao, by contrast, is primarily agricultural and very poor. Over one-quarter of the population works in the coun- tryside but agriculture contributes only around one-tenth of the whole economy. Approximately 30 million people – nearly a third of the popula- tion – are classed as living in poverty. The government has taken various steps to counteract this inequality and stimulate growth. In order to make the market particularly appealing for