Vietnam, Philippines raised to World Bank’s upper-middle-income status

The World Bank has elevated Vietnam and the Philippines to upper-middle-income status after years of brisk of economic expansion, potentially bolstering investor confidence in the two nations.
All five of the major South-east Asian economies – which include Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand – are now at the upper-middle-income tier and above, according to a release from the World Bank on July 1.
Vietnam had been categorised as lower-middle-income since 2009, while the Philippines had been there since the late 1980s, the data showed.
The World Bank cited Vietnam’s export-led growth model and the Philippines’ broad-based expansion “reflecting gains across all major industries, not a single sector boom, but an economywide shift”.
Their gross national income per capita reached US$4,970 (S$6,435) and US$4,850 in 2025 respectively, exceeding the World Bank’s US$4,636 threshold for the category.