By Leslie D. Venzon
MANILA, Nov. 11 (PNA) — Merchandise exports earnings jumped by 15.7 percent in September 2014 amid the slow recovery in the global economy, enabling the Philippines topped trade-oriented economies in East and Southeast Asia since June.
Rolando Tungpalan, Deputy Director-General and currently National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) officer in charge, said the country’s export performance for the last two quarters of 2014 culminated remarkably despite slower growth in July of 12.4 percent and in August of 10.5 percent.
“From a peak of 21.3 percent in June 2014, the latest merchandise export growth outturn signals the rebound of the exports sector, even surpassing most economies in the region during the period,” said Tungpalan in a statement.
The Philippines outperformed People’s Republic of China (15.3 percent), Vietnam (14.4 percent), Republic of Korea (6.9 percent), Taiwan (4.7 percent), Indonesia (3.9 percent), Thailand (3.2 percent), Malaysia (3.0 percent), and Hong Kong (1.0 percent).
Meanwhile, Japan and Singapore posted negative growth at -1.2 percent and -1.6 percent, respectively.
Tungpalan noted that despite the slower pace of recovery in the global economy, the September 2014 merchandise exports performance hints of a positive mood across some markets, at least for the country’s top trading partners such as China, Singapore, Germany, South Korea, Thailand and the Netherlands.
He expects total exports to continue posting positive gains during the remaining months of the year owing to the holiday season.
“The Japanese and the US (United States) markets will likely boost Philippine exports for the remaining months given the recent optimism building up in the Japanese manufacturing sector and the broad-based expansion in industrial production in the US,” he added.
Export revenues rose to USD 5.8 billion in September 2014 from USD 5.1 billion during the same month last year due to increased overseas sales of manufactures, petroleum and forest products.
This brought total export revenues from January to September to USD46.6 billion, up by 9.9 percent from USD42.4 billion.
Revenues from manufactured products registered its highest year-on-year growth thus far in 2014 at 19.7 percent to reach USD5.0 billion from USD4.2 billion in September 2013.
Tungpalan said supporting the growth are the strong gains from machinery and transport products, as well as the continued solid expansion of electronics exports especially in semiconductors and electronic data processing.
“Worth noting are the higher outward shipments of chemical products and the resurgence of coconut oil exports,” he said.
Japan remains as the country’s top export market accounting for 29.6 percent of its total revenue during the month.
The US came second with a 13.6-percent share, followed by the People’s Republic of China with 10.5 percent. (PNA)