After missing the goal set for 2023, the Philippines needs to implement catchup measures to meet the Philippine Export Development Plan’s (PEDP) target of $240 billion by 2028.
According to Bianca Sykimte, director of the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) Export Marketing Bureau (EMB), even this year’s target of $140 billion is difficult to achieve.
“If we want to catch up with our PEDP target, we need to grow by about 40 percent this year because we did not meet the target for 2023. Based on market projections, (assuming) business is as usual, we (see) about 10 percent improvement. Definitely, we’ll try to achieve more than 10 percent in exports,” said Sykimte, adding that EMB estimates a 5-percent growth in exports in 2023.
By catchup plans, Sykimte said the Philippines needs to attract investments to build domestic capacities and address regulatory restrictions.
“The priority is to address concerns on ease of doing business, issues that make it more expensive for manufacturers to produce (here),” she said adding that the Export Development Council strongly requests agencies to have a more developmental approach in terms of regulations.
“Regulations should not be more restrictive than necessary,” she added.
Sykimte added EMB is working with micro, small and medium enterprises to start exporting following reports 4,000 companies have stopped exporting.
DTI Secretary Alfredo Pascual said part of the government’s strategy of increasing our export is to bring foreign export-oriented manufacturers and for the them to bring along their suppliers as well to develop the ecosystem here especially in the areas of technology, semiconductor and electronic products where we already have existing advantages.
Pascual cited Vietnam where a third of its exports is derived from just one cluster of companies.
Sykimte said DTI will continue its information campaign and implement programs and services to help exporters grow such as trade promotion initiatives and participation in fairs where the country generated $2 billion in sales in 2023.
The PEDP has set the target of exports of goods and services at $127 billion in 2023, but as of October, shipments were down 7 percent or $5 billion less than in the same period in 2022 due to the decline in semiconductor and electronics and coconut oil.
As of September, services were doing much better, increasing 20 percent from the previous year.
