Philippine Development Authority Sees Two to Four Percent Export Growth

The Philippine National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) is expecting the Philippines to achieve the low-end export growth target of two to four percent for 2008.
 
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ralph Recto said the semiconductor sector, the country’s biggest dollar earner, has been hit by the economic crisis as manufacturers faced order cancellations due to the financial meltdown in the United States.   Wiring harness would possibly be affected by the crisis.
 
Despite the lower export sales of these sectors, the country’s merchandise exports grew by 1.9 percent from January to October 2008 compared to the same period last year.
 
Government data indicated that exports of machinery and transport equipment had offset the slower performance of electronic shipments.
 
Shipments of agro-based products, petroleum products and mineral products also helped export growth to remain positive for the first ten months this year.
 
The Development Budget Coordination Committee has revised its export growth target to one to three percent in 2009 from a high of seven percent taking into account the impact of the economic crunch.
 
However on a year-on-year account, total exports for the first ten months of the year already declined by 14.9 percent compared to the performance for the same period last year, with most of the products charting negative growths.
 
Apart from exporters, overseas Filipino workers in recession areas such as Taiwan are also vulnerable to the crisis.
 
However, countries in the Middle East particularly Qatar which employs Filipinos for their tourism and construction sectors, are expected to keep their workers.
 
“They open more than 100,000 jobs in Qatar and we are given something like 37,000 to 45,000 annual quota of visas. But next year, their need will double or triple,” he added.