THE country’s imports data have been understated during a seven-year period by as much as 42 percent, or $14.4 billion, (P641.5 billion in today’s money), the Department of Finance (DOF) said on Friday.

                The understatement from 1999 to 2006 highlights a number of things, but mainly the government’s inability to suppress smuggling, technical or otherwise.

                It also highlights the differences in reckoning imports data, with the National Statistical Office (NSO) having insisted on the CIF, or cost-in-freight,  system, while the country’s trading partners follow the freight-on-board, or FOB, system.

                The CIF system imputes costs, insurance and freight in valuing the import commodities as they land on Philippine soil. The FOB method represents the value of the goods, less insurance and freight, at their ports of origin.

                The differences are real and nothing to ridicule, Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran said.

                In 2006, for example, an 11-percent discrepancy of $6.108 billion, or P272.11 billion in today’s money, arose from the NSO imports data of only $55.514 billion against exports of $61.621 billion based on the numbers from Manila’s trading partners.

                Beltran said the difference of more than P272 billion reflect the adjustments for both insurance and freight.

                He said the numbers were extracted with the help of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has painstakingly collected the numbers in its latest edition of the Direction of Trade Yearbook.

                With a better understanding of the severity of the problem, Beltran said the government began to address the issues highlighted by the study.

                Data show the study that stretches back to 1999 when the difference was 32.2 percent, or $9.903 billion.

                The biggest discrepancy was noted in 2000, when the gap stood at 41.9 percent, the highest on record.

                 By 2001 the gap shifted down to 29.4 percent, or $9.705 billion, to 15 percent, or $5.501 billion, in 2002, to 11.5 percent, or $4.036 billion, in 2003, to 13.8 percent, or $6.525 billion, in 2004 , to 10.7 percent, or $5.426 billion, in 2005.

                The NSO, the DOF, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Bureau of Customs, the Tariff Commission and the Board of Investments all want to plug the revenue leak that could have been levied against the understated imports, according to Beltran.

THE country’s imports data have been understated during a seven-year period by as much as 42 percent, or $14.4 billion, (P641.5 billion in today’s money), the Department of Finance (DOF) said on Friday.

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