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The Philippines is forecast to lead trade growth from the period of 2024 to 2029 on the back of its strong electronics-focused manufacturing sector, according to the 2025 DHL Trade Atlas.
The report, prepared by global logistics firm DHL and New York University's Stern School of Business, identified the country as among the top 30 in both the speed and scale of trade growth.
Speed captures how fast a country’s trade volume is growing, while scale measures a country’s absolute increase in trade volume.
The report cited the Philippines, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia as among the projected leaders in trade growth worldwide.
The Philippines ranked 129th on the speed dimension from 2019 to 2024, but it is expected to leap to 15th from 2024 to 2029.
On its scale dimension, the country is forecast to rise from 68th to 30th.
“These encouraging forecasts for India, Viet Nam, Indonesia, and the Philippines suggest the importance of investments in physical infrastructure and supportive policy measures required for these countries to achieve their trade growth potential,” the report read.
“While these countries all have especially favorable trade growth prospects, they have also faced infrastructure and other capacity related constraints in the past,” it noted.
The Philippines, in particular, was observed to have seen more limited benefits from supply chain diversification.
Unlike its Southeast Asian neighbors, Indonesia and Vietnam, the country has failed to attract companies seeking an alternative location to China.
Notably, Vietnam’s continued rise into a trade powerhouse was driven by its emergence as a favorable destination for electronics manufacturing—the same sector driving the Philippines’ growth.
Nonetheless, the country is still expected to see a substantial trade growth acceleration.
Steven Altman, lead author of the DHL Trade Atlas, said there is no specific catalyst driving this anticipated growth.
Instead, he said there is a “sense of substantial potential” that has yet to be tapped within the country’s leading industries.
“If you look at the past five years, the trade value growth rate in the Philippines was only 0.5 percent. So we also have a bit of base effect there that there’s been less recent trade growth, so there’s quite a room for acceleration to take place in the Philippines,” Altman said in a press briefing.
“So, we’re hopeful that that forecast will be realized in the coming five years,” he added.
Altman said the Philippines is bound to have a 7.4 percent growth in trade volume within the period of 2024 to 2029.
Meanwhile, for its absolute volume—the current dollar value applied to the volume growth rate—it will reach $88 billion in the same period.
Geopolitical issues
Despite rapidly shifting policy changes that could upend the global trade landscape—such as United States (US) President Donald Trump’s seemingly flip-flopping tariff decisions—global trade prospects remain strong.
Altman said the current baseline outlook projects trade to grow at a faster pace over the next five years, even outpacing gross domestic product (GDP) growth.
With this, even if Trump goes ahead with his tariffs on imports from a number of countries, it would only “substantially slow but not reverse the growth of global trade.”
The report stated that while its policies will have an impact, the US is not large enough to take down the global trading system. Its share of imports currently stands at 13 percent, while exports at nine percent.
The DHL Trade Atlas added that international trade has proven to be resilient amid global issues such as the 2008 global financial crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
In the local context, the Philippines is currently under a heated political climate stemming from the arrest of former president Rodrigo Duterte for alleged crimes against humanity, as well as the impending impeachment trial of his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte.
Despite this, DHL Express Asia Pacific Chief Executive Officer Ken Lee said the country’s potential as a leader in trade growth is unlikely to be affected.
“If people in the Philippines would like to source shipments from outside the Philippines they would—regardless what the political situation is,” said Lee.
Citing the report, he emphasized that the country is poised for significant growth in the coming years.
“If you look at the Philippines now, it has a diverse and growing economy; in manufacturing, in particular semiconductors, electronics, and automobiles,” Lee added.
