MANILA— Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque on Thursday welcomed the latest outlook of S&P Global Ratings on the country’s growth by 6.6 percent for 2017, higher than its previous outlook of 6.4 percent, saying it is within the government’s target range of 6.5 to 7.5 percent.
Roque said the 0.2 percent growth is attributed to the country’s electronics-driven export boom that started in the third quarter of 2017.
“This is in line with the recent preliminary report from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showing that the Philippine merchandise exports maintained its double-digit positive performance in the first 10 months of 2017 at 11.68 percent compared to the same period in 2016,” he said.
The country’s total merchandise exports for January to October 2017 was valued at USD53.11 billion compared to USD47.55 billion in the same period of the previous year.
The country’s top merchandise export sector — electronic products with receipts of USD26.97 billion — grew double digits at 10.65 percent from January to October 2017.
“The positive performance of six out of nine subsectors of the electronics industry contributed a 97.95 percent share in the cumulative total value of the electronics industry,” he added.
Meanwhile, the semiconductors subsector, which grew by 10.96 percent in the first 10 months of 2017, contributed a 72.18 percent share to electronics and a 36.65 percent share to total PH exports. The other electronics subsectors that posted substantial increases were office equipment (61.15 percent), communication/radar (49.92 percent), consumer electronics (20.70 percent), electronic data processing (10.40 percent), and control and instrumentation (9.74 percent).
Apart from electronic products, Roque said robust export growth has also been observed in a broad range of non-electronics product sectors.
These include machinery and transport, coconut products, processed food and beverages, forest products, mineral products, non-metallic mineral manufactures as well as design-driven products including garments, articles of apparel and clothing accessories, footwear, textile yarns/fabrics, travel goods and handbags, furniture and fixtures, ceramic tiles and décor.
For the same period, the total non-electronics export receipts, amounting to USD26.14 billion, likewise grew double digits at 12.77 percent.