{"id":674003,"date":"2026-05-16T04:27:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T04:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/674003\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T04:27:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T04:27:23","slug":"western-powers-ramp-up-support-for-philippines-luzon-economic-hub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/674003\/","title":{"rendered":"Western powers ramp up support for Philippines\u2019 Luzon economic hub"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A widely touted economic hub in <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/philippines?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">the Philippines<\/a> will involve eight more countries, signalling greater international confidence in the long-term viability of the ambitious project to boost connectivity and trade in a key region.The <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/trade?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Luzon Economic Corridor<\/a> (LEC), a trilateral infrastructure initiative led by the US, Japan, and the Philippines, is set to receive additional support from Canada, Australia, Denmark, France, Italy, South Korea, Sweden and the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Initially envisioned as a connectivity project linking three main ports and two international airports across four cities on Luzon, the Philippines\u2019 main island, the corridor is now also drawing investments in energy, digital systems, cybersecurity, shipbuilding and advanced manufacturing.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The inclusion of more countries in the development reflected growing confidence in the Philippines as an economic and security partner in the Indo-Pacific, said Dindo Manhit, president of Manila-based think tank Stratbase ADR Institute.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The US embassy in Manila said in a statement on Tuesday: \u201cThrough coordinated investments in transport infrastructure, energy systems, digital connectivity, and advanced manufacturing supply chains, the LEC will create thousands of high-quality jobs and transform Luzon into a more prosperous and interconnected region.\u201d<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Philippine Secretary of Finance Frederick Go said in the statement that the expanded LEC showed the commitment of \u201clike-minded nations\u201d in \u201cshared prosperity\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A widely touted economic hub in the Philippines will involve eight more countries, signalling greater international confidence in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,2065,6693,164,2592,90842,2328,325127,277,5813,4200,3586,2489,3601],"class_list":["post-674003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-canada","tag-denmark","tag-economy","tag-france","tag-indo-pacific","tag-italy","tag-luzon-economic-corridor","tag-philippines","tag-south-korea","tag-sweden","tag-united-kingdom","tag-us","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}