Domestic trade continued decline in Q4

Amid prolonged COVID-19 quarantine, the volume and value of domestic trade fell at a faster pace in the fourth quarter of 2020 despite the holiday season.

In a report, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said the quantity of locally traded goods from a region or province to another from October to December last year dropped 38.8 percent to 3.17 million tons from 5.19 million tons in the same period in 2019.

Since the Philippines is an archipelago, “almost all [99.9 percent] of the commodities were traded through water (coastwise) while the rest were traded through air” across various islands, the PSA said.

The volume of products traded in the fourth quarter was also lower than the 3.81 million tons in the third quarter.

Also, the year-on-year contraction in trade volume was faster than the third quarter’s 36.2-percent decline.

In terms of value, fourth-quarter domestic trade slid by 53.5 percent to P82.19 billion from P176.84 billion during the last three months of 2019.

The drop in domestic trade value in the fourth quarter was also steeper than the third-quarter decline of 26.8 percent to P167.25 billion.

The PSA said the most traded commodities value-wise were manufactured goods (P26.72 billion), machinery and transport equipment (P24.38 billion), as well as food and live animals (P13.29 billion).

In terms of volume, the top three commodity groups were food and live animals, manufactured goods, and other commodities and transactions not elsewhere classified, the PSA said. INQ