The Department of Finance (DOF) said rising shipping costs are, and will continue, to be a challenge to external trade.
In its economic bulletin released yesterday, the DOF said total merchandise trade five months into 2021 reached $72.9 billion, up by 25 percent from the same period last year but still down by 2.4 percent from the same time in 2019, the last normal year before the pandemic.
Year-to-date export value was 5.8 percent lower than its pre-pandemic level, while import value was 3.3 percent higher, it added.
“By the last week of June, the Freightos Baltic Index: Global Container Freight Index averaged $6,297 (per 40-foot container), nearly twice the $3,448 average for the last week of December 2020 and more than four times the $1,461 average for the last week of December 2019,” the DOF said.
By July 30, rates have surged to $8,848.
According to a CNBC report dated July 28, analysts said while shipping rates are rising, they are “not super yet.”
A report posted by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development on July 27 also said on the heels of the coronavirus pandemic, the cost of shipping containers has reached historical highs.
“The cost of shipping one standard 20-foot container from Shanghai to Brazil, for example, is today nearly five times higher than the average of the last 12 years,” the report said.
Philippine external merchandise trade in May totaled $14.54 billion, up by 39.9 percent from the same month last year.
Meanwhile, the DOF said in its economic bulletin the arrival of additional vaccines and the continued vaccination drive for Filipinos, economic front-liners in particular, will help the country sustain the gains in containing the virus and eventually pave the way for more reopening of the economy.
