DESPITE the recent lifting of the truck ban in Manila, the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) said port congestion remains a major threat to the expansion of the country’s external trade, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary and Neda Director General Arsenio M. Balisacan said.
“Although the truck ban has been lifted to ease congestion in Manila ports, cramped port yards remain an issue that may still have an impact on external trade. These should further be monitored and given ample solution to ease the flow of goods traversing Manila ports,” Balisacan said.
Balisacan said solutions to prevent port congestion are crucial, especially with import growth posting a contraction of 1.3 percent in August 2014.
On Friday, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said the country’s merchandise import bill decreased to $5.5 billion in August 2014, from $5.6 billion in August 2013.
The commodity group that posted the largest decline is electronic products, the country’s primary merchandise import and export.
Electronic products, which was only second to fuels in terms of total import share in August, still accounted for 20.7 percent of the total import bill.
Imports of electronic products amounted to $1.135 billion in August 2014, a 15.4-percent contraction, from $1.341 billion in August 2013.
By major groups of electronic products, components/devices (Semiconductors) had the biggest share of 15.1 percent among electronic products.
Semiconductors, however, contracted 20.6 percent, to $830.99 million in August 2014, from $1.047 billion in August 2013.
However, the total import payments in the first eight months of 2014 increased by 4 percent, to $42.4 billion from $40.8 billion in the comparable period in 2013.
“Domestically, the recent slowdown in imports may reflect market sentiment of sluggish demand due to seasonal factors. But we remain vigilant should this sluggish growth in imports turn out to be a signal of a more pessimistic condition of the global economy, which may spill over locally,” Balisacan said.
Meanwhile, payments for imported consumer goods posted a double-digit expansion of 13.8 percent, to reach $766.2 million in August 2014, from $673.2 million a year ago.
Similarly, imports of capital goods grew at a faster pace of 3.1 percent in August 2014, from a marginal increase of 0.3 percent in July 2014, following consecutive contractions since February to June 2014.
“Overall, merchandise imports could possibly pick up in the succeeding months as suggested by the inventory drawdown in the national accounts,” Balisacan noted.
China remained as the top source of Philippine merchandise imports in August 2014 with a 14.7-percent share to total import payments amounting to $806.5 million.
The US followed with a share of 7.8 percent, tailed by Singapore (7.4 percent); Taiwan (7.3 percent); Republic of Korea (7 percent); Japan (6.7 percent); Saudi Arabia (6 percent); Thailand (5.9 percent); France (5.3 percent) and Germany (4.2 percent).
The value of imported commodities from other Asean member-countries accounted for 23.1 percent of Philippine merchandise imports amounting to $1.3 billion.
The European Union, meanwhile, provided $709.8 million worth of imports, or about 12.9 percent of the country’s total import requirements in August 2014.