Export council maintains target

The Export Development Council (EDC) is holding on to its target to double exports to $120 billion by 2016, even as it admits that the goal is becoming harder to achieve.

“Although the $120 billion figure for total export is a stretch target, we are inclined to keep it until a revised target is adopted. While merchandise exports may have [registered] a small or flat growth in 2013, services exports had been growing robustly. [So it’s] still hard to say, as we may still come quite close to achieving the $120-billion total export figure by end of 2016,” explained EDC executive director Senen M. Perlada.

The final targets and strategies are expected to be released with the completion next year of the Philippine Export Development Plan (PEDP) for 2014-2016.

Perlada, who also serves as director of the Bureau of Export Trade Promotion (BETP) at the Department of Trade and Industry, said in an interview that the EDC had begun initial consultations with key export business support organizations.

“Succeeding rounds of consultations will include both private sector BSOs (business support organizations) and government agencies. We hope to arrive at unified and shared targets, and to have understood and accepted elements of the plan,” Perlada added.

The EDC was considering revising the $120-billion export target by 2016, given the adverse impact of natural disasters on the country’s export capacity. But the government’s chief economist, however, remained optimistic, noting that the target was still achievable given the country’s huge potential in the services sector.

Arsenio Balisacan, director general of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda), noted that there was “renewed strong interest among foreign investors to further grow that part of the economy,” and that the country’s manufacturing sector has also started to pick up.

The current Philippine Export Development Plan 2011-2013, which was approved in July 2011, focused on several core product and market strategies.

Key focus sectors included information technology and business process outsourcing; electronics; agribusiness, including fresh, processed, and marine food products and coconut; minerals; shipbuilding; motor vehicle parts; garments and textile; home style and décor, and wearables.

In terms of product strategies, the roadmap sought to enable exporters to move up the value chain, participate in higher-value processes in the global supply chain, and develop linkages for organic, natural, and certification-based offerings.