Pernia: nCoV outbreak may bring more Chinese imports

The Philippines’ merchandise exports inched up last year while imports declined partly as a result of late budget approval that slowed importation of capital equipment for government-led projects, the country’s chief economist said Tuesday.

The latest preliminary Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data also showed that China was the Philippines’ top source of imported goods and third-biggest export destination.

The value of products imported by the Philippines from China last year hit $24.5 billion, up 11.5 percent from 2018 and accounted for 22.9 percent of last year’s total imports.

The amount of Philippine-made goods sold to China in 2019, meanwhile, reached $9.6 billion, up 9.2 percent and equivalent to 13.7 percent of total.

Only exports to the United States and Japan exceeded the value of shipments to China.

The PSA separates Philippine trade figures with mainland China and Hong Kong—if combined, total 2019 exports to China will increase to $19.3 billion, bigger than $11.5 billion to the US and $10.6 billion to Japan.

Total imports from China and Hong Kong, meanwhile, will rise to $28 billion.

Moving forward, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia told the Inquirer that the spread of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) may have both positive and negative impact on the Philippines’ trade with China.

On the plus side, Pernia said: “China would likely want to ramp up their exports among measures to prop up the economy. If so, our imports from them would continue.”

As for exports to China, Pernia said “we clearly need to aggressively look for other destination countries—in effect, widen the array of our trade partners, and vigorously boost our export drive besides diversifying our products.”

Pernia, who heads the state planning agency National Economic and Development, said diversification would also apply to the tourism sector, as China had been the Philippines’ second-largest source of inbound visitors, next to South Korea.

The Philippines’ total two-way external trade-in-goods, or merchandise exports and imports combined, last year declined 2.4 percent to $177.7 billion from $182.1 billion in 2018.

Exports in 2019 rose 1.5 percent to $70.3 billion from 2018’s $69.3 billion. INQ