DTI puts in place plans to help export industry

The Department of Trade and Industry through its Philippine Export Development Plan (PEDP) has put in place measures and strategies to improve the export performance of Central Visayas.

The measures include engaging in higher value processes, maximizing trade agreements, doing more high-impact inbound fairs and trade missions as well as linking with tourism stakeholders to promote local products.

In last Monday’s PEDP presentation held at Cebu Parklane International Hotel, DTI regional director Asteria Caberte said that they have included in the plan to move up the value chain by capturing the market for higher value processes in the global supply chain.

They also plan to develop more product linkages for organic, natural and certification enabled products.

“For next year, we will be focusing more on the sources for exports growth in Central Visayas and the Philippines, particularly semiconductors, electronics, automotive parts, home-style and garment products, organic and natural products, and services sector or the BPOs (business process outsourcing),” said Caberte.

Caberte said that DTI would also continue to encourage exporters to maximize the existing free trade agreements we have with other countries like China, Japan, South Korea and Australia.

“We are also currently drafting agreements with other countries and looking at other prospects like BRICA (Brazil, Russia, India, China and ASEAN). There are some signs that the global economic recovery will have greater parti-cipation by these emerging economies, particularly those with large domestic markets like India and China,” she said.

They also plan to do more inbound fairs and trade missions that will be linked with tourism efforts as well as come up with a unified branding for the industry.

“We plan to partner with HRRAC (Hotel Resort and Restaurant Association of Cebu) to promote our local products in their establishments. This is part of our effort to link trade and tourism,” said Caberte.

performance

Caberte said that the region’s overall trade performance showed a total decline of 38.3 percent during the first semester of this year, which included a 48.9 percent decrease in imports and a 42.3 percent drop in export value.

Total imports decreased to $834,901,498 from 2010’s $1.6 billion while exports decreased to only $967,029,084 compared to $1.17 billion in 2010.

“In 2010, we have already seen some positive indicators in our trading activities. We registered an increase of 29.8 percent with $5.5 billion in trade value last year compared to 2009’s $4.2 billion, which went on until the first two months of this year,” Caberte said.

But the positive trend in the export industry was stopped by the European economic crisis.

“It eventually lost stream in the succeeding months as global demand for the region’s products softened along with the weakening of the recovery of the United States and European economies, which are the region’s major export markets,” said Caberte.

The exporters most affected by the crisis include those engaged in furniture, gifts, toys, housewares, fashion accessories, industrial goods, food, garments, seaweed manufacturer and processing and those ope-rating inside the Mactan Export Processing Zone (MEPZ).

Based on Bureau of Customs 2010 figures, electronics account for 40.2 percent of the region’s exports followed by other industrial goods at 14.65 percent, steel and metal products at 10.14 percent, electrical equipment contributed 9.38 percent, garments with 8.22 percent, vehicles and machinery parts with 4.06 percent, furniture with 2.99 percent, other consumer goods at 2.84 percent, fashion accessories at 2.19 percent, and gifts, toys and housewares with 2.11 percent.

“For the past few years, Cebu has accounted for 100 percent of export revenues in the region, so the regio- nal export performance would naturally be influenced by what’s happening here in the province,” said Caberte.

Caberte, however, said that they still expect the export industry to improve by the end of the year but not back to the pre-crisis stage as of yet.

Target

“We have set the target for national export value to grow and achieve $89 billion by 2013 and double that by 2016,” said Caberte.

Caberte said that they are optimistic that the whole country can achieve the target following the PEDP that they recently presented as well as the continued efforts to engage more in high-value proces-ses and sign in more trade agreements.