Coconut-based exports plunged 22% in February

The monthly volume of coconut-based exports plunged 22 percent year-on-year in February as the domestic industry began to see the effects of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” ravaging millions of trees in the Visayas.

Preliminary data from the United Coconut Associations of the Philippines (Ucap) showed that the country shipped out in February a total of 129,205 metric tons in copra terms.

“This is the fifth continuous year-on-year decline (of monthly export volume) since October last year,” Ucap said in a report.

The downturn was harder for the first two months of the year, with the volume shrinking 34 percent to a total of 256,922 MT.

January to February shipments of coconut oil (CNO) plunged 34 percent to 144,370 MT, copra meal by 48 percent to 76,003 MT, desiccated coconut by 26 percent to 14,335 MT and oleochemicals as copra by 33 percent to 5,500 MT.

During the two-month period, there was no copra export compared to 23 MT in the same period of 2013.

In February alone, shipments of top dollar earner CNO fell 17 percent to 71,900 MT, as did copra meal, which dived 47 percent to 41,578 MT. Copra meal is the residue left after oil is squeezed out of copra and is used to make livestock and fishery feeds.

Also, the volume of desiccated coconut exports dropped 35 percent to 7,974 MT while that of oleochemicals slumped 65 percent to 2,750 MT in copra terms.

For this year, coconut output is expected to drop by 13.5 percent to 2.4 million metric tons after the devastation of millions of trees in the wake of Yolanda as well as Typhoon “Pablo” in December 2012.

According to Ucap, the forecast volume is also 3.8 percent short of the average 2.5 million MT yearly output in the past three years.

“The shortfall has been anticipated after noting two successive years of increasing output (in 2012 and 2013), a usual occurrence in many years in a coconut palm cycle, and due to the effects” of the typhoons, the group said in an earlier report.

This most recent occurrence of the seasonal boom was attributed to three straight years of heavy fruit-bearing among trees following a “production stress” in 2011.

Ucap projects coconut exports to plunge by 22.9 percent to 1.56 million MT in copra terms this year.

The projected shipment volume is 7.4 percent less than the 1.68 million MT average for 2011-2013.