Philippines

With some 175 ethnolinguistic groups spread across the vast archipelago of the Philippines, uniting remote regions and distinct communities under a national identity has been a challenging task for the central government. Political power gradually became concentrated in the present capital Manila under Spanish and US colonial regimes, and the notion of a strong central government was embraced...

Spanning more than 300,000 sq km, the Republic of the Philippines reaches from Taiwan in the north to Indonesia in the south. The Philippines is the fourth-largest country in South-east Asia in territorial size and is home to some 175 ethnolinguistic groups across over 7000 islands. In terms of population, it has the 13th-largest population in the world and the seventh largest in Asia....

With strong economic growth, an expanding population and an increasingly sophisticated...

This chapter contains selected listings of some of the country’s top hotels, contact details for embassies, ministries and organisations, helpful tips for business and leisure travelers, and other useful suggestions for travel to the Philippines.

Though smaller than some other capital markets in the region, the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) reached record highs in 2017 against a backdrop of robust macroeconomic expansion and the sweeping Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion programme, which should support the government’s sizeable infrastructure agenda, Build, Build, Build (BBB). Benefitting from rising levels of trading and...