The Philippines

Trade

For almost a decade, Philippine imports continued to show outstanding performance since waning in 2009. In fact, it took a huge leap from US$ 70.2 billion in 2015 to US$ 85.9 billion in 2016. This was the second and largest year-on-year increase since to 2009. Exports, however, was already in two-year decline since 2014, at US$ 56.3 billion.

Exports totaled to 2,784 products in 206 destinations, including Japan (20.7 percent), USA (15.4 percent), Hong Kong (11.7 percent), China (11.0 percent), and Singapore (6.6 percent). Machineries and electronics sector comprised largely the exports at 58.6 percent. Other exports include transportation (5.8 percent), wood (5.6 percent), vegetable (4.6 percent), food products (3.2 percent), metals (2.9 percent), chemicals (2.3 percent), textiles and clothing (2.2 percent), and miscellaneous (5.8 percent). In terms of stages of processing, most of these exports were capital goods (60.7 percent) and relatively high contribution from consumer goods (22.6 percent). Intermediate goods (9.9 percent) and raw materials (6.9 percent) had very small contribution.

The country imported a total of 4,542 products from 199 countries in 2016. Most of these were coming from China (18.5 percent), Japan (11.8 percent), USA (8.9 percent), Thailand (7.8 percent), and the Republic of Korea (6.5 percent). Machineries and electronics sector (37.7 percent) also topped the imports. Transportation (11.3) and fuels (9.8 percent) were relatively high in imports compared to exports. The country also imported chemicals (7.1 percent), metals (6.9 percent), food products (5.6 percent), plastic or rubber (4.3 percent), vegetable (4.0 percent), and miscellaneous (3.4 percent). In terms of stages of processing, the imports were mainly capital goods (42.9 percent), consumer goods (25.8 percent), and intermediate goods (21.6 percent). The Philippines imported a very minimal amount of raw materials (9.6 percent).

The countrys service imports, in terms of balance of payments, amounted to US$ 24.3 billion, while service exports totaled US$ 31.4 billion. Imports of goods and services contributed to 36.9 percent of the GDP, while exports contributed to 28.0 percent of the GDP.

Investment

The Philippine foreign investments have also been performing remarkably for the past years. From US$ 4.4 billion in 2015, it had increased to US$ 6.9 billion and US$ US$ 9.5 billion in 2016 and 2017. FDI stock reflected the same movement of increases and has stood to US$ 78.8 billion in 2017, surpassing the US$ 8 .0 billion target by the Central Bank.

Japan was the largest contributor of FDI with 30.3 percent contribution in 2017. A third of that was of Taiwan (10.2 percent), followed by Singapore (9.6 percent), USA (8.3 percent), UK (4.7 percent), Australia (4.0 percent), and South Korea (3.2 percent).

Manufacturing was the most invested sector, receiving 52.0 percent of the total FDI in 2017. Real estate came next at 21.2 percent, followed by administrative and support services (13.2 percent), electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply (4.9 percent), and information and communication (2.6 percent).

References:

https://wits.worldbank.org/countrysnapshot/en/PHL (Accessed on 30 October 2018)

https://en.portal.santandertrade.com/establish-overseas/philippines/foreign-investment (Accessed on 30 October 2018)