Philippines poised for investment boom Philippine infrastructure planners have dreamt for years of building an elevated highway above the traffic-clogged streets of metropolitan Manila and linking the capital with the fast-growing cities and ports to the north and south. Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino, the president, last week approved not one but two toll road projects across the city and instructed ministers to speed up the tendering process so they could be completed by the time he steps down from office in four years. He was hoping, he joked, for an easier journey to the beach. The proposed toll road projects, together worth 48bn pesos ($1.1bn), are adding to growing business optimism about the Philippines" medium-term prospects. Analysts say the country is on the cusp of its first investment boom since the Asian financial crisis of 1997, after more than a decade of political instability. Many of the country's biggest conglomerates are rolling out their most ambitious spending plans in years to build shopping malls, office towers and residential projects. The president is inviting private companies to build infrastructure projects, such as airports and light rail systems, through public-private partnerships that bind the government to help ensure investors recover costs and earn minimum returns through user charges or direct government payments. Ramon del Rosario Jr, chairman of the Makati Business Club, a grouping of the country's biggest companies, believes foreign investors are also expressing confidence in the Aquino administration's efforts to tackle corruption. "The main thing that has changed is this idea that we are now serious about good governance, about integrity in government, about fighting corruption," he said in a television interview, shortly after the Senate voted to remove the chief justice of the Supreme Court for failing to declare US dollar deposits in his asset disclosure statements. Shares in listed companies betting big on infrastructure, including San Miguel and Metro Pacific - the two proponents of the highway project - have surged since late last year, making the Philippines one of the best performing equities markets in the world. Despite market volatility triggered by the risk of a Greek exit from the eurozone, the Philippine Stock Exchange index is up 14.8 per cent this year after hitting record highs 19 times in the first five months of 2012. The Philippines is announcing first-quarter gross domestic product results on Thursday, and analysts predict that economic growth year-on-year may have accelerated to 4.6 per cent from 3.7 per cent in the fourth quarter, according to a Reuters poll. Most economic forecasters say the Philippines will expand 5 per cent or more next year, giving the country a fighting chance of hitting the government's growth target of 7-8 per cent in 2016. In the short term, however, the country's economic prospects are more subdued amid continuing sluggishness in the US and Europe, and a slowdown in China. Exports, which are equivalent to about a third of the economy, fell 1.2 per cent from a year ago in March as deliveries to East Asia dropped sharply. Some of the country's exports to China, such as bananas and other fruits, have been affected by the dispute between the two countries over the Scarborough Shoal reef in the South China Sea. However, Philippine trade officials do not expect the diplomatic dispute to affect deliveries of electronics parts and minerals, which Chinese companies need to produce other goods. Mr Aquino also faces the challenge of improving regulatory capacity across government agencies and units, and resolving policy conflicts that are slowing down the approvals for large investments, say business leaders. A case in point is plans by the Philippine unit of Xstrata" to spend up to $5.9bn in the next five years to develop one of the world's largest untapped mining deposits in the southern Philippines. The project is potentially the country's single-biggest inward foreign investment but is being stalled by a local government ban on open-pit mining. Milagros Reyes, who heads PetroEnergy Resources , an exploration group, complains that investors often get caught between different government agencies with overlapping mandates. "We bring in foreign drill ships that are leased per day only to be told to wait for days for permits by maritime authorities" seeking to protect the domestic shipping industry, she said.