Trade gap narrows to $1.66B in February

The Philippine trade deficit continued to narrow in February, as exports grew while imports declined during the period, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported Wednesday.

Data released by the PSA showed that the balance of trade in goods (BoT-G) narrowed to $1.66 billion in February, 39.4% lower than the $2.73-billion deficit the same month last year.

A deficit indicates that the value of a country’s imports exceeded the export receipts, while a surplus indicates more export shipments than imports.

In terms of exports, the Philippines reported a 2.8% increase to reach $5.40 billion in sales, higher than the $5.25-billion total exports sales in February 2019.

"Largely contributing to the uptrend in February 2020 were six of the top 10 major export commodities," the PSA said.

Increases were reported in other manufactured goods (45.0%); banana (fresh) (29.6%); other mineral products (13.2%); machinery and transport equipment (11.7%); gold (6.0%); and electronic products (3.4%).

Meanwhile, imports fell by 11.6% to $7.06 billion from $7.98 billion in February 2019.

"The decrement was due to the decreases in the top 10 major import commodities," the PSA said.

The biggest declines were recorded in cereals and cereal preparations (-28.2%); industrial machinery and equipment (-24.7%); transport equipment (-17.6%); telecommunication equipment and electrical machinery (-16.9%); and mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials (-12.0%).

Drops were also seen in other food and live animals (-9.0%); plastics in primary and non-primary forms (-7.5%); iron and steel (-4.0%); electronic products (-2.4%); and miscellaneous manufactured articles (-0.4%).

The latest figures brought the total external trade in goods to $12.46 billion in February, down by 5.9% from $13.24 billion the same month last year.—LDF, GMA News