MANILA: The Philippines’ trade deficit narrowed in January from a year earlier, but continued to widen month-on-month as inbound shipment remained higher than the country’s exports, official data showed.
“The balance of trade in goods (BOT-G) for the Philippines in January 2017 registered a deficit of $2.314 billion, lower than the $2.638 billion trade deficit in the same month last year,” the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said in a statement released with the trade data.
Based on the figures the trade deficit in January contracted 12.3 percent from the year earlier level. But compared with the $2.15 billion trade gap in December, the January balance was wider by 7.2 percent.
Exports in the first month of 2017 surged 22.5 percent year-on-year to $5.13 billion, while imports rose 9.1 percent to $7.44 billion, data from the PSA showed (See related story Jan exports surge 22% above).
To date, the peso trades around its weakest level in more than two years, closing today (Saturday), at P5x.x to the US dollar. It hits the P50:$1 level again in November last year as bets on an interest rate hike in the US—which actually happened in December —favored the dollar.