Exporters plan to raise 2010 growth target

MANILA, Philippines – The country’s exporters are considering an upward revision of their export growth target for 2010 from 20 percent to at least 25 percent following the higher-than-expected growth in merchandise exports during the first half of the year.

“The average for the first six months is in the vicinity of 35 percent and our projection for the whole year is only 20 percent. So we may have to recalibrate our year-end projection because of this,” Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (Philexport) president Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr. said in an interview.

Ortiz-Luis said at least 25-percent average export growth for the year is possible, even if revenue figure declines to 20 percent in the remaining months of 2010.

“It is expected that exports will be going down towards the end of the year because it started very high,” he pointed out.

Ortiz-Luis said this year’s export growth drivers would continue to be electronics and services sectors and even some coconut and agriculture products.

Merchandise exports from January to June 2010 posted an increase of 37.7 percent to $23.71 billion from last year’s $17.22 billion, according to National Statistics Office (NSO) data.

June 2010 exports earnings registered a double-digit growth of 33.4 percent to $4.54 billion.

Electronic products, already accounting for about 64 percent of the total export revenue in June 2010, grew by a whopping 49 percent to $2.9 billion.

These were followed by articles and apparel and clothing accessories and coconut oil with total export earnings during the month reaching $152.4 million and $95.62 million, respectively.

Deliveries in the third quarter of the year are expected to sustain the high growth path shown in the first half. Historical experience during periods of growth indicated that buyers made bigger orders in this quarter for the expected surge for Christmas shopping.

The export industry leaders have projected that if the high double-digit growth from January to June holds, total exports by the end of the year may come close to reaching figures in 2008, when total merchandise sales abroad hit $49.07 billion. It is seen to range between $47 and $48 billion.

Proven as top seller of the half-year period in review was coconut oil, surging at a hefty 184.46 percent in six months with over half a billion dollars in sales, and catapulting itself to overall sixth placer among the country’s top 10 export goods.

Philippine exports peaked in the year 2007 when these reached a record high of $50.46 billion in revenues. It may take the industry another year of double-digit growth to stage a full recovery and surpass pre-crisis record.

The latest cumulative figures for the first half of the year of recovery indicated that about two-thirds of the country’s top 30 export commodities have followed the growth path, with tuna posting its first positive growth this year in June.

While most manufactured goods including handicrafts have joined the recovery bandwagon, a number of the country’s leading farm and fishery export products continued to post negative growth for the first half of 2010.

Leading the losers were bananas whose sales declined 30.3 percent below 2009 levels, followed by sugar that posted a minus 26 percent growth and pineapple which dropped 18.86 percent. Dessicated coconut was the fourth big loser in the first half of the year, sliding 14.47 percent.

Still struggling to join the winners were two groups of fishery products, shrimps and prawns which posted a 6.86 percent retreat and tuna which sold 4.21 percent less in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year.

Among the manufactured goods, footwear stood like a sore thumb as the lone laggard, registering a 68.22 percent decline in sales of only $4.4 million compared to the first half of last year when it hauled in $14 million. –Philexport News and Features (The Philippine Star)