Slower Philippine export growth seen likely this year

MANILA  – The growth of Philippine exports is seen slowing down this year amid persistent supply chain issues and a flat performance expected by the flagship electronics industry.

Philippine Exporters Federation (Philexport) president Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr. said that although they expected faster growth in revenues in 2023, signs were showing that it won’t be a substantial increase.

“It will be coming from a lower base. So, it will increase in percentage but it will not be dramatic,” Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr. said during a forum organized by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry at the Astoria Plaza in Pasig City.

“The problem is that the supply chain is very much affected by geopolitical problems,” he said further, noting in particular the rising tension between China and the United States.

According to data from the Philippine Statistics Authority, the country’s export earnings reached $78.98 billion in 2022, marking a 5.7-percent growth from the previous year’s $74.69 billion. Exports went 14.5 percent higher in 2021 than in 2020, the year when the COVID-19 pandemic started.

Ortiz-Luis also noted that the flat growth projection for the country’s electronic exports was also a major factor in this tempered estimate.

To recall, the Semiconductor and Electronics Industries in the Philippines Foundation, Inc. (SEIPI) revised its export growth target this year from 5 percent to just zero after suffering a considerable decline in the first six months of the year.

SEIPI president Danilo Lachica pointed to issues arising from geopolitical and trade conflicts involving the U.S., one of the sector’s top export destinations.

In recent months, the SEIPI official had also warned that the looming global recession, as well as economic repercussions from the Ukraine-Russia conflict, would affect the local electronic exports industry.