THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is targeting to raise earnings from the exports of goods and services to $110 billion next year despite a 10-percent cut in its budget.
During the budget plenary debate at the House of Representatives on Monday, Pangasinan 4th District Rep. Christopher V.P. De Venecia, speaking as sponsor of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), said “In terms of exports, the DTI hopes to increase the current amount to about $110 billion.”
This, despite the agency’s budget being slashed by P2.4 billion or 10 percent lower than last year’s budget.
De Venecia noted that DTI also intends to “maintain a high stakeholder engagement rating and formulate more industry roadmaps and policies through job generation and global competitiveness geared towards economic growth and poverty reduction.”
Meanwhile, World Bank data shows that Philippine exports of goods and services amounted to $101.45 billion in 2021.
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the country’s annual total export earnings from January to December 2021 amounted to $74.64 billion. This, PSA said, represents a 14.5- percent increase over 2020’s annual total export value.
By commodity group, electronic products topped export sales in December 2021 with total earnings of $3.67 billion, or 58.5 percent of the total exports in the period.
The PSA said this was followed by other manufactured goods with an export value of $435.60 million; and coconut oil, $166.04 million.
By major type of goods, exports of manufactured goods had the biggest share in total exports in December 2021, or $5.27 billion. This was followed by total agro-based products with a share of $496.43 million; and mineral products, $374.20 million.
By major trading partner, the United States comprised the highest export value of $1.01 billion during the month; followed by exports to China, $925.15 million.
Meanwhile, the most recent exports data published by PSA show year-to-date annual total export earnings—from January to July 2022—amounted to $44.74 billion.
Trade Secretary Alfredo E. Pascual said in a statement on September 18, “We recognize the continuing challenges in the domestic and global trading environment and we hope to address the binding constraints to Philippine export competitiveness as we draft and implement the Philippine Export Development Plan (PEDP) for 2023 to 2028. The PEDP being drafted features a more robust analysis of our priority export products and its corresponding markets, wider stakeholder engagement, and a proactive legislative agenda.”
Speaking as the sponsor of DTI at the budget plenary debate, De Venecia bared the breakdown of DTI’s proposed budget for 2023, which includes the agency’s Exports and Investments Development program, among others.
According to the General Appropriations bill, the lawmaker said, the proposed budget of the Trade department is P22.196 billion for: the Office of the Secretary, its five attached agencies, its three attached government owned and controlled corporations (GOCC) and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA).
De Venecia said DTI’s budget shall fund five major regular programs: Exports and Investments Development program with a funding of P773.35 million; the Industry development Program, P454.94 million; the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) development program, P726.79 million; the Consumer Protection Program, P443.57 million and the Consumer Education and Advocacy Program, P82.78 million.
Under this proposal, the agency also has four locally-funded projects: the Go Lokal worth P9.14 million; Negosyo centers, P486.76 million; the One Town, One Product (OTOP) Next Generation, P86.92 million and the Shared Service Facilities, P70.4 million which De Venecia said, “has been a tremendous help to our MSMEs.”
However, De Venecia said, “Note that the P70 million is not for capital outlay so there’s no new shared service facility for 2023 ironically and sadly.”