Monday, December 20, 2010

...sustainability

Philexport sees sustained export growth in 2011

By EDU LOPEZ
mb.com.ph
December 19, 2010
The Philippine Exporters Confederation (Philexport) is confident that the export sector's strong recovery this year would be sustained in 2011.

Philexport forecasts that export earnings would hit $50 billion by the end of 2010 compared to last year's level of $38.4 billion.

Total export sales from January to September 2010 already reached $38.298 billion, led by the electronic products.

Philexport president Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr. told a recent Philexport general membership meeting that the foreign exchange rate may not affect this year's revenue forecast, citing the peso's depreciation to P44 despite the influx of dollar remittances sent by the overseas Filipino workers for their families during the Christmas holidays.

The peso closed at P44.15 to the US dollar on Thursday from previous day's P43.94. The high growth path may no longer come from Philippine traditional trading partners, said Ortiz-Luis.

He said that exports to the United States and Europe continued to decline until September this year, an indication that economies of these countries have not fully recovered.

In contrast, sales to the ASEAN trade bloc have accounted for 30 percent of total. And for the whole of East Asia, Philippine exports already represents close to half of all exports at 41 percent, he added.
Ortiz-Luis sees bright market prospects in Asia, particularly China and India.

"China and India alone have a combined population of 2.5 billion people, millions of them getting more prosperous each day. We need to find out what we can produce in abundance that the Chinese and Indians may want to buy," he said.

The government is helping industry players open and expand markets with these two huge markets as well as with other new trading partners like New Zealand and Australia.

"This new decade, more Asian countries are riding on the crest of the third and perhaps final wave of rapid development in the rest of Asia. We now know where we are going and must move in concert now and get there."

Ortiz-Luis said the aggressive push in opening up new markets with the country's trading partners in Asia plus the market for halal food in the Middle East was specifically spelled out in the new Philippine Export Development Plan (PEDP).

The PEDP for the years 2011 to 2013 is now being fine tuned in time for implementation starting next month.
Apart from this initiative, another new strategy that has been added in the plan is the strengthening of the value chain.

This is through new investments and long-term partnerships for each of the export industries, particularly those that use indigenous raw materials like food processing, furniture, handicrafts, fine and fashion jewelry and Christmas décor.

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