{"id":322646,"date":"2023-04-13T10:42:28","date_gmt":"2023-04-13T02:42:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/?p=322646"},"modified":"2023-04-13T10:47:01","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T02:47:01","slug":"phl-trade-deficit-good-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/phl-trade-deficit-good-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Good news about PHL&#8217;s trade deficit is bad news overall"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div style=\"height:26px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Analysis and Recommendation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The Philippines registered a trade deficit of $3.877 billion in February 2023, which was 2.7% lower than the $3.98 billion deficit in same period last year. It was the country&#8217;s smallest deficit in three months and lower than consensus estimates. The lower trade deficit was largely due to the 12.1% decline in import receipts in February 2023 compared to the same period last year. The $1.2 billion decline to $8.9 billion was the steepest drop since November 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the other hand, the country\u2019s exports fell by a larger 18.1% YoY to $5.08 billion. It was also relatively steep as it was the biggest drop in export volume since May 2020. With the drop in both imports and exports, total external trade shrank by 14.4% year on year to $14.03 billion. Imports continued to dominate total trade with a 63.8% share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Our View: <\/strong>The shrinking level of total external trade is bad news as it is a clear indication of a weakening global economy. The United States is expected to go into a recession this year while the China reopening play has yet to materialize. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the past, China has been the top export destination for Philippine goods, but has since been surpassed by Japan and the US. While this is not surprising as China only recently fully reopened its economy, the restarting of their manufacturing facilities needs to be monitored closely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The larger drop in export receipts is not really surprising to us given the weak manufacturing data confirming the weak demand and oversupply of semiconductors and other electronic products. The drop in commodity prices can partially explain the drop in export value as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That being said, the declining trend of commodity prices should translate to a narrower trade deficit for the Philippines in the coming months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:26px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:16px\"><em><em>This report is prepared by PinoyInvestor\u2019s partner broker below. Find out more about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/our-partner-brokers\/\">our partner brokers<\/a> and sign up to avail their complete trading brokerage services.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s a commentary on an important issue or event affecting the stock market<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-322646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-special-reports","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":322648,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322646\/revisions\/322648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinoyinvestor.com\/smartinvestor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}