Exporters see better year ahead

TOTAL EXPORTS, consisting of both goods and services, should recover next year, growing by up to five percent on the back of a positive momentum in merchandise exports, a senior official of the Export Development Council (EDC) said.

Sergio R. Ortiz-Luis, Jr., president of Philippine Exporters Confederation, Inc. and EDC private sector vice-chairman, told reporters yesterday that the council now expects total export sales to grow by three to five percent to $91.99-93.75 billion next year.

This comes after more than a year of contraction in outbound shipments of goods, pushing the EDC to scale down its 2016 outlook for total sales as trade reels across the globe from depressed demand.

September, however, bared a glimmer of hope that merchandise exports may be on the way to sustained recovery into 2017, growing 5.1% to $5.211 billion that month — the first expansion in 17 months. A three percent fall in August — the smallest decrease this year, so far — lent some hope that recovery had begun.

“We expect that after September baka sakali tuloy- tuloy na ( growth may continue),” Mr. Ortiz-Luis told reporters yesterday on the sidelines of the National Export Congress 2016.

“Before September hit us, we thought magne- negative tayo, even including services. Buti na lang merchandise exports sort of caught up.”

But sales abroad of Philippine goods still fell 6.2% to $ 41.691 billion in the nine months to September against a 3% growth assumed for this year’s national budget. In comparison, merchandise export sales fell by a smaller 5.27% for the entire 2015.

Mr. Ortiz-Luis said the council itself is keeping its target for 2016, expecting outbound merchandise sales to at least end flat or grow by up to 3% to $86.99-89.53 billion.

Growth this year may still be “doable” in the wake of September’s surprise increase in foreign sales of goods and a projected 9% growth in service sales.