Global slowdown batters Philippine exports
By Doris Dumlao
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 05:08:00 05/10/2008
Philippine export earnings fell 6.8 percent year-on-year in March, after a 10.5-percent growth posted in February, as shipments of electronic products decreased sharply because of the US-led global economic slowdown.
“Our export revenues for the first quarter improved only by 2.7 percent, still a long way from the 8-percent target for 2008,” Augusto B. Santos, acting socioeconomic planning secretary and director general of the National Economic and Development Authority, said in a memorandum he sent to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Friday.
First-quarter export earnings were flat at $12.52 billion, compared with $12.201 billion last year.
Export earnings in March fell to $4.18 billion from $4.49 billion a year earlier as shipments to the US, traditionally the Philippines’ biggest export market, hardly increased.
Japan became the top market, accounting for 17.0 percent of total exports as against 16.3-percent share of the United States.
Exports to Japan grew 18.5 percent while exports to the US increased by a meager 1.0 percent.
“We continue to expect a deceleration in exports due to worsening conditions in the US economy, already seen to be in, or near, a recession by various indicators,” said Margarita Gonzales, economist at New York-based think tank GlobalSource.
“Hopes that other markets will continue to compensate for US weakness have lately dimmed,” she added. “Growth projections for the euro area, which buys roughly the same proportion of Philippine products as the US, now indicate a sharp slowdown.”
The fall in March export earnings was largely due to a 17.4-percent year-on-year drop in the shipment of electronics products, which make up the bulk of Philippine exports.
“This mirrors recent data releases across the region, with exports of electronics slowing in Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan,” said HSBC economist Frederic Neumann. “Korea, too, saw electronics exports soften markedly recently, even if the headline export growth figure here accelerated.”
Reduction in the shipments of semiconductors (-22.2 percent), office equipment (-15.3 percent), consumer electronics (-1.7 percent), and control and instrumentation (-25.6 percent) offset gains in other major electronic products, such as electronic data processing (1.1 percent), telecommunications (87.5 percent), communications and radar (2.4 percent), medical and industrial instrumentation (52.6 percent), and automotive electronics (6.8 percent).
Earnings from export of garments also fell, by 9.5 percent. However, significant gains in export of machinery and transport equipment (7.1 percent), chemicals (41.3 percent), coconut products (129.4 percent), and major commodity groups such as mineral products (19.2 percent) and petroleum products (65 percent), prevented further decline in export earnings. Edited by INQUIRER.net
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