With the Greek debacle dominating the news, it can sometimes be tough to imagine that there’s a well-run country left in the world. With Greece’s public debt now at 175% of the country’s gross domestic product, its potential exit from the euro zone has been drawing attention to the fact that there are many other countries with potentially unsustainable debt levels. Thankfully though, that’s not universally true.

Martin Hutchinson, chief Investment Strategist at Pacific Wealth, spends a great deal of his time finding economically well-run countries in the Pacific Rim region. The Philippines is one of his favorites.

The country’s GDP has actually been growing faster than China’s of late, thanks to more global companies setting up shot in the country. It has become particularly popular with call centers, thanks to the fact many Filipinos speak English fluently, making it the third-largest English-speaking country in the world. Another major attraction is that while wages have been on the rise, labor costs in the country are still quite low relative to many others in the region.

On top of that, the Philippines sports a balanced budget with little debt and a large balance-of-payments surplus, helping to keep the country’s economy stable. That makes it extremely attractive to investors of all sorts.

One of his favorite Filipino companies is Manila Water (OTC: MWTCY). A water utility, the company serves more than 6 million residents in the East Zone of Manila, the nation’s capital, supplying clean water and providing sewer services.

It’s tough for most Westerners to image than just 20 years ago, clean water was a real scarcity in Manila with only the better-off having consistent access to it. The prompted the country’s government to enact the National Water Crisis Act, which essentially took water service out of the government’s hands and turned it over to the private sector. That prompted the creation of what would become the Manila Water Company of today.

That’s led to a lot of changes. In Manila Water’s coverage area, 24-hour access to clean water went from just 26% in 1997 to 99% last year. Over the same period, the company doubled its number of customers from 3.1 million to 6.3 million, while laying more than 5,000 kilometers of pipe and replacing nearly 90% of its water network. It now delivers more than 1.2 billion liters of water today while losing just 11% of it to waste, a level of efficiency that rivals many local American water utilities.

That’s led to substantial growth for Manila Water, with 5-year average revenue growth of 11.4% and earnings per share growth of 12.5%. Analysts estimate that average growth should continue, particularly as the company expands its operations.

Considering its own domestic track record, it should come as no surprise that other countries and municipalities want to tap into that experience. A number of localities in the vicinity of Manila have turned their own water service over to the ute, driving better than 30% growth in volume growth at its local subsidiaries, and it is working to aggressively expand its sewer service coverage area in its home territory.

Its service area is also growing organically; the city of Manila is already the fifth-largest urban area in the world and the population in the metropolitan area is growth by more than 2% annually. On top of that, Manila Water has launched international ventures in Vietnam and Myanmar.

More to Come

That’s just one of the huge growth opportunities that Martin has identified in the Pacific Rim and he’s constantly on the lookout for more.

In fact, he thinks one of the biggest growth stories in the region is the wide adaption of industrial automation – using robots to build cars or mine ore, amongst other tasks. You can find more on that story here.