The Philippines currently has $49 billion of unrealized export potential, the International Trade Centre‘s (ITC) Export Potential Assessment (EPA) reported.
This is out of the $107 billion total export potential of the Philippines in the products covered by the study.
The EPA is part of the ARISE Plus Philippine Project, a 4-year project funded by the EU, focused on building the competitiveness of the Philippines. It is based on an ITC methodology identifying products, markets, and suppliers with untapped export potential as well as opportunities for export diversification.
According to the study posted in the Export Development Council social media account, the top market where the Philippines has the largest export potential (EP) is East Asia with $54 billion followed by North America, ASEAN, and the EU.
The top sector is machinery and electronic equipment which covers almost 75 percent of export potential. The other top sectors are manufactured products, horticulture, minerals, metals, and other products.
For agriculture, the total export potential was placed at $16 billion, out of which $5.2 billion is still untapped. The total export potential is highest in East Asia, but growth opportunities are higher in the EU, the study further noted.
One of the study’s objectives is to serve as a tool to inform the Philippine national planning and policy-making body, including the new Philippine Export Development Plan (PEDP).
The said report was presented by ITC during the December 02, 2021 session of Usapang Exports, as part of the activities of the annual celebration of the National Exporters Week (NEW), jointly organized by the Export Development Council (EDC), DTI Export Marketing Bureau (EMB), and the Philippine Exporters Confederation, Inc. (PHILEXPORT).
For the January-November period 2021, cumulative export earnings mounted to $68.37 billion, a 15.2 percent increase compared to the export value earned from January to November 2020, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
By commodity group, electronic products continued to be the country’s top export in November 2021 with total earnings of $3.71 billion. This amount accounted for 59.2 percent of the total exports during the period. This was followed by other manufactured goods with an export value of $370.36 million (5.9%); and machinery and transport equipment which amounted to $172.46 million (2.7%).