OVERSEAS SALES of Philippine goods grew at its fastest pace in more than two years in December, narrowing the country’s trade deficit that month as imports continued to decline, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported this morning.

Preliminary PSA data showed value of merchandise exports picking up by 21.4% annually to $5.74 billion in December – the fastest since July 2017’s 21.9% – compared to a revised 12.2% year-on-year decline to $4.73 billion recorded in December 2018.

December export figures drove the full-year 2019 tally to $70.33 billion, up 1.5% from the $69.31 billion in 2018’s comparable 12 months and surpassing the one-percent target set by the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) for 2019.

Meanwhile, merchandise imports were valued at $8.22 billion in December, down 7.6% from $8.90 billion in December 2018.

The import bill was down 4.8% to $107.37 billion for full-year 2019 against the DBCC’s two-percent target set for the year.

The trade-in-goods deficit in December figured at $2.48 billion compared to a $4.17-billion trade gap in the same month in 2018. Cumulatively, the trade deficit reached $37.05 billion, smaller than the $43.53-billion gap in January-December 2018. — JEH

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR