Customs tasked to 'reconcile' wide trade gap with China

MANILA, Philippines — Filipino customs officials are set to meet with their Chinese counterparts to review the declining but still significant gap between the two countries’ registered export-import data.

The estimated gap in registered Chinese-Philippine exports and imports had been narrowing although still very large at 60 percent in 2010, 57 percent in 2015 and 48.7 percent in 2016.

In the first seven months of 2017, the two nations’ trade disparity shrank to 48 percent, or $8.53 billion, in favor of China, one of the Philippines’ largest trading partners.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the Department of Finance said Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has ordered Customs Commissioner Isidro Lapeña to meet and “closely coordinate” with China’s customs chief to “reconcile” the trade discrepancy.

“These numbers, we're not sure if they’re apples to apples. The definitive figure will come out from Lapeña's sitting down with his counterpart and working it out,” Dominguez said.

“You have to reconcile your figures on the import-export data. Anyway, the difference is not anymore 60 percent. It's only 48 percent now, but that's still large," he added.

Lapeña earlier reported to the Finance chief that the wide trade imbalance between Manila and Beijing could be attributed to gross misdeclaration or undervaluation of goods in terms of either volume or weight.

Underhanded schemes such as the release of goods to “hidden” traders and not to the consignees on record could also be a cause of the discrepancy, Lapeña added.

However, Dominguez had raised the possibility that the trade gap could just be the result of “timing issues” and “inclusion and exclusion of particular commodities in reporting.”