Robust spending keeps growth on track

Bigger consumer spending will drive economic growth across entire swaths of Southeast Asia this year and next as consumer classes come online in much of the region, the World Bank said in a recently released report.

For example, overseas Filipino workers are sending bigger remittances back to the Philippines and making it possible for their families to spend more. Cambodia and Vietnam are exporting more textile products, which translate into higher incomes and more cash to spend domestically. Ongoing efforts in Myanmar to open up the country's closed economy are bearing fruit with enviable growth.

These developing economies are doing well, even if growth in the Philippines is down by a couple of percentage points from a year ago. Their larger and more developed neighbors are also growing, although the World Bank has cut its growth expectations for this year and the next for these economies.