Philippine Exports Climb 27.4% on Electronics Demand, Supporting Recovery

Philippine exports rose a sixth month in April as demand for electronics goods climbed, helping sustain the nation’s economic recovery from last year’s slump.

Shipments abroad increased 27.4 percent from a year earlier to $3.57 billion after rising 43.8 percent in March, the National Statistics Office said in Manila today. That compares with the median forecast for a 42.7 percent gain in a Bloomberg News survey of 11 economists. Growth in March was the fastest since at least January 1981, when Bloomberg data began.

Demand for Philippine-made goods including Texas Instruments Inc. semiconductors has risen amid a global economic rebound, prompting the government to say it will raise its 2010 growth forecast. Still, Asian exports may falter as Europe struggles to contain its sovereign-debt crisis, forcing countries to cut spending to reduce budget deficits.

“There may be a bit of a tapering off in export growth as the global recovery slows with the problems in Europe,” Emilio Neri, an economist at Bank of the Philippine Islands in Manila, said before the report. “Asian nations are also exerting efforts to avert asset bubbles and that may reduce demand for trade.”

The country’s economic planning team may raise the low end of its economic growth target for this year to 3.6 percent as early as next week, acting Economic Planning Secretary Augusto Santos said yesterday. The current estimate is a range of 2.6 percent to 3.6 percent.

Electronics Climb

Philippine President-elect Benigno Aquino, who takes office this month, has promised to create jobs and lure investments to boost incomes and spur growth.

Worldwide semiconductor sales rose 50.4 percent in April from a year earlier, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. Electronics sales, which make up more than half of Philippine exports, rose 29.7 percent in April from a year earlier, today’s report showed.

Exports account for about a third of the Philippines’s $167 billion economy. In neighboring Malaysia, shipments abroad climbed 26.6 percent in April from a year earlier, slowing from a 36.4 percent gain in March.
(Source:Bloomberg)