Imports up 2.4% to $63.9B in 2014

MANILA, Philippines–The value of imported goods that entered the country last year totaled $63.92 billion, up 2.4 percent compared with 2013, as shipments slid by a tenth in December due to lower importation of capital and consumer goods as well as lower prices of oil products.

The imports increase posted in 2014 was below the 9-percent growth target set by the government, but nonetheless brought the gap between export revenues and import receipts closer. Philippine-made goods shipped overseas rose 9 percent to $61.81 billion last year.

“The full-year growth of the country’s merchandise imports relative to our strongly performing merchandise exports reduced trade-in-goods deficit in 2014 to $2.1 billion from $5.7 billion in 2013. This by far is the narrowest trade gap recorded since 2001,” Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan said on Tuesday.

Philippine Statistics Authority data, released also on Tuesday, showed that imports last December dropped by 10.6 percent to $4.87 billion from $5.44 billion in the same month of 2013 mainly on the decline in shipments of five major commodities—transport equipment; mineral fuels and lubricants; cereals; miscellaneous manufactured articles, and industrial machinery and equipment.

Balisacan, who is also director general of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda), said the “tepid growth of imports for December 2014 was generally pulled down by plunging oil prices, a trend which was more conspicuous during the last three months of 2014.”