and the winner is...
and so it finally happened. the philippines beat indonesia and the rest of asia (except china) in posting the highest economic growth rate. this bodes well for the government's quest for an investment grade rating, a distinction currently enjoyed by indonesia, another southeast asian country with almost the same features as the philippines - large, youthful population, export dependent, rich natural resources, persistent budget deficits, frequent borrowings in the overseas debt markets. (in my past life when i was covering asian bonds, investors and analysts would always compare the philippines and indonesia - both the biggest sellers of bonds in the global markets - and some of them would point out that philippine dollar bonds were already trading at investment grade levels, even faring better than indonesian dollar bonds.) portfolio investments (and hopefully the more permanent foreign direct investments) are expected to pour in like a typhoon as an investment grade rating l...