December exports grow for 7th straight month, beat other Asian economies

MANILA, Philippines - The country's merchandise exports jumped by 15.8 percent in December 2013, growing for the seventh consecutive month and surpassing other selected countries in Asia, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) reported on Tuesday.

"Export earnings in December 2013 amounted to $4.599 billion, a 15.8 percent growth from $3.971 billion recorded value in December of 2012. The positive growth was mainly brought by the increase of six commodities. These are other manufactures, electronic equipment and parts, ignition wiring set and other wiring sets used in vehicles, aircrafts and ships, electronic products, other minerals and woodcrafts and furniture," the National Statistics Office reported.

NEDA said the Philippines outshone Vietnam (12.6 percent), Indonesia (8.5 percent), Malaysia (7.6 percent), Korea (7 percent), Singapore (5.6 percent), China (4.3 percent) and Thailand (1.9 percent). Other countries saw their exports plunging such as Taiwan (-1.9 percent), Hong Kong (-3 percent) and Japan (-6.2 percent).

“The positive exports performance of the Philippines—and even those of the majority of trade-oriented economies in the East and Southeast Asia—was reflective of the recovery of major economies such as the United States of America (USA), European Union, and Japan,” said Secretary of Economic Planning Arsenio M. Balisacan.

Electronic products remained the country's top export with a 41.4-percent or $1.905-billion share of the total revenues.

Meanwhile, Japan accounted for most of the exports revenues with a 23-percent or $1.059-billion share to the total. It was followed by China, USA, Hong Kong and Singapore.