THE country’s total external trade has declined by 5.4 percent to US$16.95 billion in November, preliminary data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024.
In November 2022, the country’s total external trade stood at $17.92 billion.
Total external trade refers to the combined value of a country’s exports and imports of goods and services with other nations. It represents the total value of all the buying and selling activities between a specific country and the rest of the world.
Export sales in November 2023 amounted to $6.13 billion, indicating an annual decrease of 13.7 percent from the $7.10 billion total exports in the same month of the previous year.
Electronic products had the highest annual decline in the value of exports for the month with $1.13 billion. This was followed by coconut oil with an annual decline of $26.76 million, and gold with an annual decrease of $18.61 million.
From January to November, the total value of exports reached $67.03 billion, down by 8.4 percent from $73.18 billion in January to November 2022.
Exports to the United States of America (USA) comprised the highest export value amounting to $970.22 million or a share of 15.8 percent of the country’s total exports for the month. This was followed by Japan, $949.66 million (15.5 percent); China, $821.53 million (13.4 percent); Hong Kong, $721.54 million (11.8 percent); and South Korea, $326.48 million (5.3 percent).
‘Catch-up plan’
Secretary Frederick Go, presidential adviser on Investment and Economic Affairs, in a Philexport News, vowed to support the electronics sector and other key industries as part of the government’s “catch-up plan” to reverse the decline in exports.
The catch-up, which also includes attracting foreign investments and investing in infrastructure, targets to realize the country’s untapped export potential of $49 billion.
The electronics sector comprises about 60 percent of the country’s total exports.
“The industry has only grown bigger and given the Philippine status as a top global exporter of electronics with particular strength in the semiconductors, it is an opportune time to fully harness the potential of this sector and to create an entire ecosystem that produces high-value products for the global market,” Go said during the general membership meeting of Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc., the umbrella organization of exporters in the country.
“The key here is there is a pivot now away from China by a lot of the Western as well as the Asian countries and a lot of the attention is now going to our neighboring countries such as Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam. The most important part of my office’s job now is to ensure that the Philippines gets a respectable market share of this pivot away from China, especially in the semiconductors sector,” he said.
Imports
On the flip side, imported goods totaled $10.820 billion, reflecting a marginal annual increase of 0.02 percent from the import value of $10.817 billion recorded in the same month of the previous year.
In November 2023, the commodity group that experienced the highest annual growth in value was transport equipment with $340.72 million followed by metalliferous ores and metal scrap, which saw a growth of $146.03 million, and miscellaneous manufactured articles with an annual uptick of $108.84 million.
The total import value from January to November 2023 reached $116.01 billion. This signifies an 8.6 percent decrease compared to the total import value of $126.90 billion recorded during the same period in 2022.
China was the country’s largest supplier of imported goods valued at $2.72 billion or 25.1 percent of the country’s total imports in November 2023.
Completing the top five major import trading partners for this month were Indonesia, $1.01 billion (9.3 percent); Japan, $892.17 million (8.2 percent); South Korea, $714.24 million (6.6 percent); and the USA, $654.52 million (six percent).