MANILA, Oct. 1 (PNA) — Food and electronics will be among the top driver of the manufacturing sector, which in turn will continue to propel the country’s economic growth for the remaining months of the year, according to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).
“Manufacturing will continue to lead the growth this year, as the country is starting to benefit from the manufacturing roadmap, particularly among the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which on its own accounts for the 64 percent employment,” DTI Undersecretary Adrian Cristobal said, during the Philippine Economic Briefing on Tuesday.
Citing earlier reports by the agency, Cristobal said both electronics and non-electronics combined for a strong export performance in January to July period of this year, saying “electronics which accounted for USD 14 billion or 40 percent of the country’s total merchandise export for the period, expanded by 4 percent.”
Based on available data from the government, non-electronics merchandise also surged to a 12 percent growth, accounting for USD 21 billion or 60 percent of total Philippine exports.
According to Cristobal, merchandise exports for the year are expected to be driven by non-electronics which totaled USD 30 billion last year, an improvement from the previous year’s USD 27 billion, “representing 11.5 percent growth.”
Growth will be supported by increasing demand for non-electronics, particularly food products, driven by consumers with growing appetite from Japan, China, U.S., Singapore, Germany, Thailand and other countries in the Southeast Asian Nations and the East Asia.
Saying that fresh food export and intermediate goods spurred the growth of non-electronics exports for the early part of this year, Cristobal said that “fruits and vegetables have been enjoying generally good harvests, while `processed foods and beverages have like-wise been experiencing robust demand.”
Noting that most of the companies engaged in food and agro-based are SMEs, Cristobal said that Business Permit and Licensing Systems (BPLS) were prioritized by the department.
Data provided at the forum says that from 2010 up to the second quarter of this year, 1,395 local government units (LGUs) were trained on how to streamline their BPLS, of which 138 are cities and the remaining are municipalities. Out of this LGUs, 1,242 actually completed streaming their BPS, while 153 are currently undergoing reforms.
For the business registry (PBR) and business name registration system (BNRS), a total of 45,672 sole proprietors were registered under PBR, which is 72 percent improvement from 26,570 registrations in the same period last year.
Enhanced BNRS resulted in an average processing time for business name transaction reduced further to 6 to 7 minutes, from the customary 10 minutes, according to the document made available during the economic performance briefing. (PNA)