Trade exec hopes for export recovery this year

CEBU, Philippines – While the global economy remains fragile, a trade official expressed hope the local export sector will be able to recover this year after a negative growth last year.

Despite the lingering sluggish global demand, some Cebu exporters maintained their market presence and stayed “above water”, said Asteria Caberte, Central Visayas director of Department of Trade and Industry.

Some exporters, Caberte said, have shifted to other business models and served the domestic market to offset the sluggish external demand.

For instance, she said exporters of furniture, decors, gifts and houseware have survived despite the plunging exports.

“Others maintained their market presence, stayed above water and survived,” Caberte said in an interview yesterday.

Efren Carreon, regional director of the National Economic and Development, had said in December that volatilities in the global market were likely to constrain and dampen growth of the region’s export sector in 2015.

In October 2015, Philippine exports fell by 10.8% to $4.6 billion from $5.1 billion in same period in 2014 due to continued sluggish external demand.

In the first 10 months of 2015, exports dropped 6.2% to $48.9 billion.

“The lingering sluggish global demand, as well as the slack in industrial activity in the United States and the recent economic adjustments in China, brought down the country’s exports,” economic planning chief Arsenio Balisacan said in a statement on the October exports.

Balisacan noted exports growth in the succeeding months could be expected to remain weak, given the economic slowdown in the country’s major trading partners.

The official stressed the need to collaborate with the private sector to facilitate marketing export products to the domestic market.  (FREEMAN)