PH may revise exports, imports targets

MANILA, Philippines – Two key economic indicators — exports and imports growth targets for 2013 — may be revised downward following a contraction in May.

On the sidelines of the launch of the Philippine Human Development Report on Monday, July 30, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan told reporters that the targets will have to be revisited on account of the revisions made by the private sector on their own targets.

Balisacan also said that if the government revises its targets, the growth estimates for export and import growths could be lower than 10%. The government’s official 2013 target for exports is 10% and imports, 12%.

“We may have to revisit that because I think even the private sector has revised their target. They revised downward so we have to consult with them,” Balisacan said.

The country’s trade performance is an indicator of how external factors, including the slowdown suffered by key trade partners, such as the US, Europe and China, impact the Philippines.

The country’s total merchandise exports receipts for the first 5 months of 2013 posted a contraction of 6% to $21.093 billion in 2013 from $22.445 billion in 2012. In May, exports of electronic products, which account for the biggest share in exports at 35.4%, declined 9.3%.

Import bill in the first 5 months of 2013, on the other hand, amounted to $24.755 billion, down 3.6% from the $25.683 billion recorded a year ago.

Balisacan said the new targets could be reduced to a single digit. “Could be in single digits unless other sectors in the economy, not in manufacturing, but other agricultural exports, or agro-process export pick-up sufficiently strong, that will be still okay,” Balisacan said.

The government has earlier set the growth targets for 2013 at 10% for exports and 12% for imports.

GDP in 2nd quarter

Balisacan, however, remained optimistic that the country’s 2nd quarter gross domestic product (gdp) growth will still be “robust” citing initial available data.

“For those already available, like for example remittances, numbers are already quite good like inflation, interest rate and exchange rate, manufacturing is expanding, ” he noted.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported a 2.8% inflation rate for June. It expects inflation rate to settle within 2.2% to 3.1% for July, well within the government’s full-year target of 3% to 5% for 2013.

Overseas Filipinos’ personal remittances grew 6.4% to $9.7 billion in the January to May.

In May, the National Statistics Office reported that the country’s manufacturing output or the Volume of Production Index (VoPI) posted a 20.4% growth, the highest since the VoPI posted a 20.7% increase in October 2012.

The BSP’s Consumer Expectations Survey (CES) results showed that consumer sentiment improved in the second quarter to a confidence index (CI) of -5.7%. This was the most upbeat index since the start of the nationwide survey in 2007. – with reports from Cherrie Regalado/Rappler.com