Economic Planning Secretary Cayetano W. Paderanga Jr. said the country would double its efforts in expanding trading links to cope with future shocks that might disrupt merchandise imports and exports.
“Expanding the Philippines’ trade relationships by exploiting forward and backward linkages of the current exports to our traditional trading partners may mitigate adverse impacts of similar shocks in the future. This means that the country should be able to diversify its suppliers and exports markets in order to reduce reliance on its current markets,” he said.
The latest data from the National Statistics Office (NSO) showed a 21.2-percent increase in the country’s merchandise import bill in March to $5.523 billion from $4.556 billion a year ago. This brought the trade deficit in March to $1.17 billion, the NSO said.
Paderanga noted that the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in March disrupted the production chain and caused prices of electronic parts to increase.
“With Japan’s status as a major supplier of capital goods and electronic parts, the disruption in the supply chain is expected to have impacted trading activities in East Asia, including the Philippines, in the months after the earthquake,” said Paderanga, who is also director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).
According to the NSO, payments for imported raw materials and accessories for the manufacture of electronic equipment surged by 109.9 percent in March 2011 despite the 36.2 percent contraction in volume shipped.
Import growth in March was driven by raw materials and intermediate goods (75.7 percent) and mineral fuels and lubricants (10.7 percent). The value of inward shipments of mineral fuels and lubricants grew due to oil price hikes in the world market.
“The increased upward pressure on oil prices emanated from political tensions in several countries in the Middle East and North Africa,” Paderanga said.
The average price of Dubai crude oil rose to $108.7/bbl in March 2011, higher by 40.8 percent from $77.19/bbl in March 2010.
Neda said the Philippines followed the double-digit imports growth trend in the East and Southeast Asian region. Those with high import growth were Indonesia (32 percent), Vietnam (31.3 percent), PR China (27.3 percent) and South Korea (27.3 percent).
For March, the United States was the top source of Philippine imports with an 11.5 percent share. Following the United States were Japan (10.4 percent), Singapore (9.5 percent), China (9.1 percent) and Taiwan (8.7 percent).