PH external trade up 3% in September

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

The Philippines’ trade in goods with the rest of the world climbed 3 percent year-on-year to $17.60 billion in September, resulting in a major downturn during the month for local exporters which are pessimistic for the remaining months of the year.

The latest preliminary data from the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) released on Wednesday showed that end-September merchandise exports amounted to $6.26 billion, resulting in a 7.6 percent decline from the $6.77 billion total export sales in the same month of the previous year.

Agro-based products contributed $492.6 million while mineral products had a share of $645.24 million.

READ: PH trade deficit narrows; exports gain ground

These are both higher than the $397.72 million and $642.31 million recorded for both categories of goods in September 2023.

Manufactured goods still had the biggest share, at $4.95 billion, but saw its contribution drop from the $5.57 billion in the same month last year.

Still, the year-to-date annual total value of exports managed to grow by 1.1 percent to $55.67 billion from $55.08 billion in the same time frame in 2023.

“By commodity group, electronic products continued to be the country’s top exports in September 2024 with total earnings of $3.15 billion or 50.3 percent of the country’s total exports during the period,” the PSA said in its report.

This was followed by other manufactured goods with an export value of $506.69 million and the other mineral products category with $330.23 million.

Despite the downturn, Philippine Exporters Confederation, Inc. (Philexport) vice president for advocacy, communications and special concerns Ma. Flordeliza Cusi Leong told the Inquirer that exports have improved in the last two months, citing markets are recovering and correcting.

“The increase may also be a reflection of the Christmas season orders. But even as this is happening, we know that geopolitics continue to disrupt the flow of goods and the supply chain,” Leong said.

“The last two typhoons may also affect our agri-based exports. So, I do not see some big improvements in these situations in the near term,” she added.

In contrast, total imported goods during the month increased posted a growth of 9.9 percent to $11.34 billion from $10.32 billion a year ago.

This led to a 0.6 percent rise of the country’s total import value from January to September as it inched up to $95.07 billion from $94.49 billion.

The latest import and export figures resulted in a trade deficit of $5.09 billion, widening from the $4.38 billion deficit recorded in the previous month and the $3.55 billion in the same month in 2023.