Azizur Rahman, a senior official of the Bangladesh Export Processing Zone, denied that foreign investors may be pulling out.

WSJ: Bangladesh Unrest Risks Derailing Its Textile Boon

Since 1970, when it established an export-processing zone, its foreign sales of textiles and sugar have boomed and its per capita income is now the second highest in Africa.

ECONOMIST: Trading places

Another problem for Mr Estrada is Subic Bay, a former United States naval base that has been transformed, since the Americans left it in 1992, into the country's flagship export-processing zone.

ECONOMIST: The Philippines