EXPORTS PICKING UP

Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez bared the country’s export industry is still doing well amid the pandemic and prolonged community quarantine measures citing statistics on export performance for March.

In a Laging Handa public briefing, Lopez said the export revenues in March 2021 rose 31.6 percent to USD6.68 billion from a 15.8-percent decline in March 2020 at USD5.08 billion.

Lopez added that export revenues in March this year are even higher than the pre-pandemic level.

“We can’t say that it’s only positive growth because 2020 was low since this is the beginning of the pandemic. But even versus 2019, we really saw growth on our exports,” he said.

The trade chief attributed the growth of exports to the government’s policy to allow 100 percent operation of companies in export activities.

He added that the electronics sector that accounted for 60 percent of the country’s exports and the information technology and business process outsourcing (IT-BPO), which is one of the top-dollar earners for the country, continued to post growth despite local lockdowns as they were allowed to operate at full capacity.

Lopez said the electronics industry rose 5 percent while the IT-BPO sector grew by 2 percent, although lower than the outlook for each sector at 7 percent and 5 percent, respectively.

“This shows resilience despite the pandemic,” the top trade official said. “I would say (our export industry is) doing well.”

He added that the exports will continue to pick up with the country’s solid economic fundamentals.

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