Human Geography of the Philippines
The Republic of the Philippines. Covering a land area of 299,700 square kilometers, the country is mainly composed of three major island groups, namely Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, with a total of more than 7,000 large and small islands. The scattered island groups have also resulted in the diversity of Philippine nationalities and cultures, and have been occupied by Spain, the United States, Japan and other countries, so many Western customs have been integrated into the culture. The Philippines currently has a population of about 110 million, with a population growth rate of 2.04%, which is lower than 2.36% in the 1980s, but still ranks first in Asia. According to the results of the last census in 2010, the population structure of the Philippines presents a pyramid structure, with only 4.3% of the elderly over 65 years old, or about 4 million people, and 62.3% of the working-age population (referring to those aged 15 to 65). With a median age of just 23, it is a very young country.
II. National Economy of the Philippines
From 1850 to the 1970s after World War II, the Philippines was one of the richest countries in Asia, one of the emerging industrial countries and one of the emerging markets in the world, together with Japan and Myanmar. This is due to its open policy adopted in the 1960s, which actively attracted foreign investment and achieved remarkable results in economic development. Although the economic development slowed down due to the economic recession in the West, the measures taken by the Philippines to revitalize the economy in the 1990s made the economy begin to recover in an all-round way and maintain a relatively high growth rate.
& emsp; & emsp; After entering the 21st century, with President Benigno? When Aquino III (Benigno Aquino III) came to power, the Philippines began to take more reform measures, such as fighting corruption and vigorously promoting infrastructure construction, which won the Philippines an investment-grade rating and greatly promoted consumer confidence. Although the Akilo government continued to contend with China on the South China Sea issue, and even once brought the South China Sea issue to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, triggering regional tensions, the government's achievements in domestic economic development are still remarkable, except for a considerable decline in economic growth in 2011. In other years, the growth rate of GNP was at a high level of more than 6%.
Figure 1: Real GDP Growth Rate of the Philippines
Data source: Wind
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that the Philippines' economic growth rate of about 6% will be maintained at least until 2019. With the new Duterte government coming to power, Philippine-China relations have improved and the South China Sea issue has cooled down significantly, which will play a further role in maintaining a good economic development environment and maintaining the stable development of the Philippine domestic economy.
III. Cement Development in the Philippines
3.1 Prologue
The Philippine cement industry first began in 1914, when the Ynchausti Company established the first cement plant in the Philippines, named Rizal, in Binangonan. At that time, the output was only 2000 bags per day, each of which was 94 pounds, about 43 kilograms, but the factory was soon closed because the factory could not provide stable quality cement due to technical reasons. It was not until 1921 that the Philippine government contacted an American company to build a factory to restart the cement industry. Because of the suitable raw materials and reliable technology, the Philippines finally had a reliable and stable supply of cement, which really opened the curtain of the Philippine cement industry.
Figure 2: Cement production capacity and demand in the Philippines (10,000 tons)
Data source, CEMAP, China Cement Research Institute
3.2 Expansion period
In the early 1990s, the Philippine economy began to recover, and so did the real estate industry. With the growth of demand, cement enterprises began to borrow money to expand vigorously. After a long period of slow development, the Philippine cement industry has finally ushered in a wave of prosperity.
PHINMA Group, a local cement giant in the Philippines, is a typical representative of the expansion during this period. It established HI Cement Plant in 1991, Island Cement Plant in 1992, Bacnotan Cement Plant in 1993, Davao Cement Plant in 1994, and expanded HI Cement Plant again in 1995; At the same time, Republic Cement began to realize that the strategy of making full use of its existing capacity could not catch up with its competitors and began to expand, and other cement companies began to expand their own ways. In 1995, the Gokongwei family purchased the old APO cement plant and a number of other new cement plants.
During the three years from 1994 to 1996, the Philippine domestic economy grew steadily. The GNP growth rate was 6.8%, and the average GDP growth rate was 5.5%. The Philippines, like other East Asian and Asian partners, has great economic potential and strong growth. In order to realize these growth potentials, the Philippine government began to vigorously promote infrastructure investment, which brought a bright future to the local cement enterprises. Everyone believed that the cement industry would enter a super boom period, and expansion was a matter of course.
In 1991, the cement production capacity of the Philippines was 6.698 million tons. During the eight years from 1991 to 1998, the average annual growth rate of the cement production capacity of Philippine cement enterprises was as high as 22%, especially in the three consecutive years since 1996, the average annual growth rate was 25%, 30% and 40% respectively. As major cement companies built new cement plants or expanded production capacity, by 1998, Philippine cement production capacity had reached 25.64 million tons, more than three times the capacity in 1991.
However, the good times did not last long. The Asian financial crisis triggered by the relaxation of exchange rate control in Thailand hit the economies of East Asian countries, and the Philippines was no exception. The domestic real estate and infrastructure in the Philippines cooled down rapidly, or in the current popular words, fell off a cliff. The 1997 financial crisis has hit Philippine cement companies hard, and it can be said that it has permanently changed the Philippine cement industry.
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