Philippine imports increase to $5.54bn

Philippine merchandise imports reached 5.54 billion U.S. dollars in August, an increase of 6.9 percent compared to the same period of last year despite of the notable loss from electronic products, the Philippine National Statistics Office (NSO) said Friday. The data released by the agency shows that the import value of electronic products amounted to 1.34 billion dollars, which accounted for 24.2 percent of the aggregate import bill of the country, making electronic products the top imported commodity in August. However, NSO said the import figure of electronic products in August is 9.0 percent lower than 1.472 billion U.S. dollars that was recorded in the same month of 2012. On a monthly basis, it went down by 17.6 percent from 1.627 billion dollars in last July. The loss of electronic products was compensated by other main import goods. NSO said the imports of mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials ranked second with a reported value of 1.293 billion dollars, which increased 26.5 percent compared with 1.023 billion dollars in August 2012. Transport equipment, which was the Philippines\' third top import for the month, recorded an import value of 456.76 million dollars, which was 55.4 percent higher than the previous year\'s level, NSO said. Altogether, out of the top 10 import commodity groups of the Philippines in the month, seven registered a positive year-on-year change, leading to the 6.9 percent increase of imports than August, 2012, the agency added. Meanwhile, China continued to be the main source of imported goods of the Philippines since May 2013, with a value of 720.23 million dollars which accounted for a 13-percent share in the total value of imports in the month. China is followed by the United States (9.4 percent), China\'s Taiwan (8.4 percent), and Japan (8.2 percent), the agency said.