Export industry roadmap seen ready by early 2023

A government-private sector export development roadmap, that sets the strategies and action plans to be pursued in the next six years to grow the country’s exports,  is being finalized and is expected to be completed by early next year.

Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (Philexport) president Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr. told this to reporters at the sidelines of the National Export Congress  on Dec 7 in Pasay City, adding that the six-year Philippine Export Development Plan (PEDP) is still under review by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).

The development plan targets to increase the country’s export receipts to $130 billion yearly by 2024 and to $240.5 billion by 2028, of which 44 percent or $106.4 billion would come from shipments of electronics and electric goods.

“You cannot go on if there is no plan,” Ortiz-Luis said, saying there were delays due to changes in the roadmap and the transition in the government administration in the middle of the year.

PEDP focuses on the intensification of trade promotion, marketing, design innovation and branding initiatives,  as well as pursuing active membership in regional and bilateral preferential trade agreements.

The strategy also calls for market diversification,  the clustering and consolidation of small producers, skills matching within the export industry, and strengthening of technology and innovation system.

The industry’s development also requires the improvement and strengthening of the export value chains and  coordination mechanisms.

As of September this year, the country’s exports reached $7.157 billion, up 7 percent from the same month last year.

Speaking at the event, Trade Secretary Alfred Pascual said that total Philippine export of goods and services posted a 9.7-percent increase in 2021 year-on-year, but was still short of the 2019 pre-pandemic levels.

He said export receipts from transport and travel services in 2021 was significantly below their 2019 pre-pandemic value, adding that in travel services alone, the Philippines has yet to recover more than $9 billion in export sales that was there before the health crisis.

“The early stages of the pandemic exposed how reliant many economies had become on relatively few global suppliers of essential goods and services. Such a situation prompted widespread calls for greater supply chain diversification,” Pascual said.

“It became clear over subsequent months how quickly supply chains have adapted, how new suppliers have emerged, and how diversification, in terms of export products and markets, plays a vital role in economic resilience,” the trade chief added.