According to the Philippines’ systematic summary of the 1983 to 2006 Balance of payment, that shows all its transactions in reference to the rest of the world, it is reflected that economy has always been ever changing with inconsistencies and policy experimentations. It is also a reflection of different external and internal factors have affected her economy hence exhibited by a “boom and bust” trend.
For many ages, the Philippines have been a largely preferred commercial center owing to its ethnic minority-the pioneer Chinese occupants. During the first and early second millennium, the archipelago had been rampantly visited by people of the Indian and Arab origin for the trading purpose. By the 21st century, the country joined the membership of several international organizations like the ASEAN, APEC ant WTO.
The Philippines have opened their economy internationally since the 1980s hence made non-restricted treaties with a number of countries. According to US Department of commerce dad in 2010, the trade transacted between the US and the Philippines amounts to US$15.4 billion.
The government has underway plans to open up the country to interested foreign industrial investments like mining, tourism, and processing operations. However restrictions such as public utilities and foreign land ownership hinder this exposure.
The primary Philippine export commodities include electronic products and semiconductors, garments, transport equipment, petroleum products, copper products fruits and coconut oil.
The major export partners including their amount of transactions are as follows; Japan (16.2 percent of the total export products), US (917.6 percent), Hong Kong (8.6 percent), Netherlands (9.8), Germany (6.5 percent), China (7.7 percent), South Korea (4.8 percent) and Singapore (6.2 percent).
There was a decrease of the Philippines’ imports from 4727031 USD in January of 2013 to 4708016 USD February of 2013 according to the National Statistics office (NSO). According to history, the Philippines’ imports have recorded an average of 1476724.80 USD from 1957 until 2013. The peak of the sales was 5882358 USD thousand in July of 2008 while it registered a minimum sale of 37084 USD in February of 1963.
The Philippines’ main imports are electronic products, (25 percent), fuel (25 percent), industrial machinery (5 percent), transport equipment (7 percent), iron ore and metal scrap (4 percent), and cereals 93 percent)
The following are the Philippines’ main import partners; Singapore (6 percent), Thailand (6 percentage), South Korea (9 percent), Taiwan (8 percent), Japan (10 percentage), China (11 Percentage) and the United States (11 percentage)
According to The National Statistics Office in February of 2013, the Philippines’ recorded a trade deficit of 967234 USD Thousand. The Philippines’ balance of trade is an average of 233851.15 USD Thousand with the highest recorded to be 1144700 Thousand in September of 1999 and the lowest being recorded to be 1658000 USD Thousand in November of 2011.
Owing to high raw material imports, the Philippines regularly post the trade deficits according to the mammoth raw material and intermediate goods’ imports.
The presence of tariff and non-tariff trade barriers is a stumbling block international trade despite the fact that they encourage and protect the existing domestic industry. They are constantly revised and change without prior notice. They use the Harmonized System based Single-column tariff. This is an international product nomenclature whose formation conforms to the auspices of the World Customs Organization and was made not only for the trade characteristics collection but also for international trade transactions.
Most of the duties are ad valorem, that has been assessed on the freight charges and export value. The existent tariff’s ASEAN margin preference is subjected to a periodical product –by-product based negotiation.
In accordance to the commitment that was made by the Member Countries on the tariff reduction program under the CEPT scheme, there has been a shift in attention to non-tariff barriers. However, article 5 of the CEPT coaxes all the member states to remove other non-tariff barriers gradually over a period of 5 years after the concessions’ enjoyment. Member countries are now coming up with detained work programs that are expected to completely wipe away NTBs due to endorsement by the ASEAN Economic Ministers Meeting that took place in September 1995. Presently, the NTB elimination preparatory work is now being undertaken by the Interim Technical Working Group (ITWIG) on CEPT of AFTA that is directly answerable to the ASEAN Senior Economic Officials.
According to a number of information sources, the following have been identified as the primary NTBs that affect intra-regional trade: monopolistic measures, technical measures, customs surcharges and product characteristic requirements. Custom surcharges get applied to more than 2.863 tariff lines. Product characteristics and technical measures rank second involving approximately more than 975 lines. The monopolistic measures involve state trading or the limited or selected group of importers use.
There are several measures that fall in this category. However, the following are well explained: Para-tariff measures (additional charges, price control measures, decreed customs evaluation), price control measures (administrative price fixing of import prices, voluntary export price fixing of import prices, variable charges), finance measures (advance payment requirements, advance import deposits, cash margin requirements, advance payment of custom duties, regulations concerning terms of payment for imports, transfer delays, queuing), monopolistic measures (single channel for imports, compulsory national services), technical measures (technical regulations) and product characteristic requirements.
Works Cited
Philippines Balance of Trade. Retrieved on 13th May 2013from
Philippines Trade, Exports and Imports. Retrieved on 13th May 2013from
Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Non-tariff Barriers. Retrieved on 13th May 2013 from http://www.asean.org/communities/asean-economic-community/item/non-tariff-barriers>
Australian Government austrade. Tariffs and Regulations. Retrieved on 13th May 2013 from http://www.austrade.gov.au/Export/Export-Markets/Countries/Philippines/Doing-business/Tariffs-and-regulations >
Benjamin E.D. Philippines-Japan Trade Frictions. A Study on Non-tariff Barriers. Retrieved on 13th May 2013 from http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25770140?uid=3738336&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21102005739733 >
