Philippines-UAE CEPA set to boost economy: Filipinos

The Philippines and UAE have recently signed a landmark economic partnership agreement, set to boost trade, investment and growth for both countries

- Mariecar Jara-Puyod, Senior Reporter

Nearly five years in the making, Filipinos said that the Republic of the Philippines-United Arab Emirates Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), signed on the sidelines of the “Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week” last week, shall definitely help propel the classified lower middle income economy (LMIC), climb up the World Bank (WB)-oriented stratification.

A July 2025 news report in Business World, based in Metro Manila, quoted the WB as having described the Southeast Asian state, being stuck in the LMIC category since 1987; and, that it had “posted a record gross national income (GNI) per capita of $4,470, higher than its GNI per capita of $4,230 in the previous year.”

The WB claimed that the current home to over 117 million “was only $26 shy of” the WB's lower GNI per capita requirement of $4,496 to $13,935” to attain its goal of becoming an upper middle income economy.”

GNI is the addition of a country's gross domestic product and the net overseas income of its citizens and companies, minus the compulsory overseas payments.