GMANews - Investors are now more optimistic about the Philippines after the fastest-growing nation in the region last year bested other Asian countries in a Dutch lender’s survey.
The Philippines posted the highest improvement in investor sentiment among Asian countries for the third quarter of 2008, the ING Bank’s latest Investor Dashboard Sentiment Index said.
Philippine investor sentiment rose 25 percent to 138 for the third quarter this year from 110 for the second quarter, the highest increase among regional markets surveyed, the Dutch lender said in a statement released on Tuesday.
From neutral, the Philippines currently hovers above the optimistic zone, despite its marginal year-on-year decline of 7 percent.
The Philippines joined other Southeast Asian countries in sharing a relatively optimistic view compared to the rest of the countries in the region. In contrast, markets in the region which have exposures in the United States were less optimistic.
Philippine investors are generally more optimistic as indicated by 59 percent of those surveyed looking forward to an improvement in the economy in the fourth quarter of 2008. While only 44 percent say that the stock market will rise in the fourth quarter, 66 percent believe that their return on investment will go up in the same period.
“Given that investors in the Philippines are generally conservative and have relatively less exposure to overseas investments, there are significantly fewer investors here who feel the impact of the global crisis on their investments,” ING Bank Philippines Managing Director Cesar Zulueta said in a statement.
On the other hand, countries with closer trade links with the US and Europe experienced sagging sentiments from investors. These countries include Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and Korea. The US economy is currently hobbling due to the subprime crisis and demise of its major investment banks.
“Overall in Asia, there has been a significant decline of 39 percent in investor sentiment in pan-Asia (excluding Japan) over the past 12 months, reinforcing the point that Asia is not as decoupled from the US or global economy,” the ING statement added.
The sentiment index for Malaysia is up five points; Indonesia shows a 15-point increase while in Thailand, investor sentiment has improved marginally by three points.
Apparently, the gloomy economic outlook at the global level failed to overshadow investor sentiments in these countries.
The ING Investor Dashboard is the first quarterly survey in the Asia Pacific region that provides a pan-Asia (excluding Japan) investor sentiment index.
The survey is conducted quarterly across 13 markets in Asia Pacific, and not only provides market insights on investor attitude and outlook but also allows each market to be benchmarked and tracked against the overall investor sentiment across Asia using the pan-Asia index.
