THE regional office of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) recorded a decrease in Davao Region's exports by 21.07 percent to $424.4 million in first quarter this year from $537.8 million of the same quarter last year.
Data from PSA-Davao also showed that the volume of exports ecreased by 46.7 percent to 646.6 million kilogram in the first three months of this year from 1.2 billion kilogram in the same period last year.
The top ten exported products of the region remained to be dominated by agricultural commodities.
The top exported commodity in first quarter this year is coconut (copra) crude oil, with total value of $106.6 million, which is a 172.8 percent increase from $39 million in 2014. The volume of copra exported also increased by 183.4 to 95.7 million kilogram from 33.8 million kilogram.
The top export market for copra is Netherlands with $66.5 million, followed by USA ($20.9 million), Italy ($9.9 million), Spain ($5.8 million), and Taiwan ($1.2 million).
Fresh or dried bananas, including plantains, placed second at $94.2 million. Top destinations included Japan ($37.4 million), China ($33.7 million), Iran ($8.1 million), Korea ($5.1 million) and Singapore ($1.8 million).
Activated carbon of coconut-shell based ended as top three most exported commodity of the region at $46.8 million, a 252.4 percent increase from last year’s Q1 value of $13.2 million. Main export destination include the Japan ($32.6 million) followed by USA ($2.3 million), Taiwan ($1.8 million), China ($1.5 million) and Germany ($1.3 million).
Wood charcoal including shell or nut charcoal agglomerated or not came in fourth at $33.9 million. The number one export market is Japan ($33.6 million), Germany ($167,332), Belgium ($78,066), China ($65,165) and Korea ($34,540).
Completing the top five exported commodities in the region is natural rubber in other forms, like in air-dried sheet or lates at $18.9 million. Top export destinations for the commodity included Taiwan ($8.4 million), Malaysia ($4.6 million), Hong Kong, China ($3.6 million), Lithuania ($641.942), and China ($606,278).
Also among the top export commodities in the region are: coconut oil and its fractions, refined ($16.3 million), dried or fresh pineapples ($16 million), mixtures, prepared or preserved fruits like Lychees, Longans, Jackfruit, mangoes, among others ($13 million), fractions of animal or vegetable fats and oil ($11.9 million) and desiccated coconut ($10.3 million).
Japan remained to be the a major export market for Davao Region's commodities at $115.6 million, followed by Netherlands ($79.9 million), China ($49.1 million), USA ($48.6 million), Taiwan ($19.8 million),Korea ($ 11.13 million), Hong Kong, China ($11.12 million), Italy ($10.5 million), Iran ($9.6 million) and Singapore ($8.9 million).