Gov't ups export target to $42 B

Government has raised its export target this year from an original $39.2 billion to $42 billion despite the dismal performance of the so-called export winners last year.

The Department of Trade and Industry said the Estrada administration has approved the 2000 target set by the management committee of the Philippine Export Development Program (PEDP).

Trade undersecretary and PEDP mancom chairman Lilia R. Bautista said the leading export industries are expected to propel the country's exports this year, especially electronic goods and garments.

Bautista said government will be validating its export priorities throughout the implementation of the PEDP and this may lead to the reconstitution of the so-called list of export winners drawn up by the Eminent Persons Group (EPG).

Trade undersecretary Ernesto Ordoñez told reporters that the EMG is reviewing the EPG's list and expects to come up with a selection of priority industries that will receive government support.

Ordoñez admitted that most of the export winners listed by the EPG turned out to be "losers," with only four out of the 15 listed industries actually ending the year with a positive growth.

The EPG list contains the following: electronic components and products, garments and textiles, processed food, marine products, furniture, carrageenan and seaweeds, metal manufactures, gifts/toys/housewares, jewelry, marble, ceramics, IT services, construction services and professional consulting services.

"Out of the 15 only four actually managed to grow, the rest were negative performers," Ordoñez said without identifying the four winners.

He said government is changing tack and dropping the winners' list altogether.

"We are not calling them export winners anymore, we only want to list priority industries that need the least government support to be able to perform well," Ordonez said. "We are reconstituting the list based on a value-chain analysis that would determine which of the export industries would give the highest lead with the least intervention."

Philippine Exporters Confederation president Serio Ortiz-Luis Jr. earlier expressed confidence that this target is obtainable. "This would be around 17 percent higher than what we expect for 1999 and this is just normal growth rate," he said.

Ortiz-Luis said he expects increased garments exports when the new rules on quota allocations take effect next year. "We expect that the more rational access to export quotas would trigger a growth in our overall garments exports," he said. "We would be utilizing more of our quota and getting into markets that were not fully exploited in the past."

Electronic equipment, he said, would also continue to be the top dollar earners as they have been in the past. For the first eight months of 1999 alone, electronic equipment and parts accounted for 53.7 percent of the sum or $1.725 billion, higher by 26.99 percent from $1.359 billion last year.

Taiwan -- the biggest customer for these products -- increased its order by 87 percent or $308 million in August from $165 million in the same period last year. Ortiz-Luis pointed to Taiwan as main cursor for the increase in export numbers, paying $1.461 billion or 6.68 percent of the total export receipts.