October exports up by 2.9%

MANILA, Philippines - Higher export earnings from manufactures and total agro-based commodities pushed exports to grow by 2.9 percent in October, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported on Wednesday.

The National Economic and Development Authority said the growth in October counterbalanced the weaker sales of minerals, petroleum and forest products.

PSA said merchandise exports in October grew to $5.2 billion from the $5 billion posted a year ago, whlie total export revenues for the first 10 months of the year hit $51.8 billion, 9.2 percent higher than the $47.4 billion during the same period in 2013.

“This growth is attributed to higher sales of electronic products, machinery and transport equipment, miscellaneous manufactured articles, iron and steel, furniture and fixtures, and textile yarns/fabrics,” said Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan.

Electronic products remained the country's top exports in October, accounting for 43 percent of the total receipts. This was followed by other manufactures (9.4 percent), machinery and transport equipment (7.2 percent), woodcrafts and furniture (3.8 percent) and chemicals (3.6 percent).

Japan was the country's top export destination, receiving up to 21.7 percent of outbound goods from the country in October. This was followed by the United States (15.1 percent), China (12.5 percent), Hong Kong (10.1 percent) and Singapore (7.2 percent).

“This period’s positive performance, despite the decline in three commodity groups, puts us in a relatively better position than our neighbors because we managed to sustain growth amid weak exports performance of almost half of the trade-oriented Asian economies,” said Balisacan.

Vietnam led the region with a 12.5-percent jump in exports, followed China (11.6 percent), Thailand (4 percent), the Philippines (2.9 percent), Korea (2.3 percent) and Taiwan (0.7 percent). 

Negative growth rates were posted in Singapore (-9.2 percent), Malaysia (-5.8 percent), Indonesia (-2.2 percent), Hong Kong (-1.6 percent) and Japan (-0.8 percent).

“We must remain vigilant, however, as the October performance of the exports sector generally reflected the softening of the country’s main trading partners. Major economies such as Japan, China and the Euro area are facing a myriad of economic difficulties, which could dampen exports growth in the short run,” Balisacan said.