Exports seen rising by 4.5%

Merchandise exports are now expected to grow by 4.5 percent this year, faster than previous estimates, according to DBS Group.

The latest projection is higher than the financial services provider’s recent forecast of 1.3 percent, which was a revision of an even earlier expectation of 3.7 percent.

In February, the Singapore-based group slashed its projection after the government reported that export receipts fell by 20.7 percent year on year in December, or worse than the DBS forecast of -16.7 percent.

The December results brought the full-year 2011 export results down by 6.9 percent.

In January, DBS said Philippine exports were expected to remain subdued in the first semester of 2012 and that the full-year performance would drag the growth of total domestic output.

However, DBS is now seeing a rosier picture following the better-than-expected results for January, when exports grew 3 percent, turning around after eight consecutive months of decline.

Various analysts were projecting an average decline of 18.5 percent for January, with DBS setting the figure at -17.7 percent.

“Although we had suspected that exports in absolute terms would trace a bottom in (the first quarter), the data was surprisingly strong,” DBS said.

The group had said earlier that because of relatively high numbers in the first semester of 2011, growth in exports will stay “anemic” in the same period this year before it would “spike sharply” in the latter few months of this year.

In its latest comment on the Philippines, DBS observed that compared to December figures, exports were up by 21 percent month on month, mainly due to a 35.1-percent surge in electronics exports.