By Kris M. Crismundo
MANILA, Aug. 25 (PNA) — The country’s trade of goods with overseas markets in the first semester (H1) of 2015 reached US$ 59.61 billion, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported on Tuesday.
Exports revenue in January to June period posted US$ 28.89 billion while imports bill pegged at US$ 30.72 billion.
The PSA, however, mentioned that total external trade in the first half of the year declined by 3.6 percent from US$ 61.84 billion after both exports and imports fell by 4.5 percent and 2.8 percent, in the same period, respectively.
Balance of trade in goods (BOT-G) in H1 2015 registered a deficit of US$ 1.84 billion, an increase of 33.4 percent from US$ 1.38 billion deficit a year ago.
For the month of June alone, country’s external trade grew by 9.6 percent to US$ 11.28 billion from last year’s US$ 10.29 billion.
Imports bill made a turnaround from three-month decline as it went up by 22.6 percent to US$ 5.92 billion in June.
Exports likewise eased its decrement to 1.8 percent posting US$ 5.36 billion worth of receipts in June from a decrease of 17.4 percent in May.
The country’s top trading partners for June 2015 were Japan, United States of America, China, South Korea, and Hong Kong. (PNA)