SEIPI sees 10% growth in exports this yr

MANILA, Philippines - The electronics industry is looking forward to a better year this 2012 after grappling with the global financial issues and the natural disasters in Japan and Thailand last year.

According to Semiconductors and Electronics Industry of the Philippines, Inc. (SEIPI) president Ernesto Santiago, the electronics industry is hopeful that 2012 will be a better year and that they will be able to post a 10 percent growth in exports from last year.

“We can’t make a good forecast yet… but at the moment, a 10 percent improvement from 2011 could be a good target,” Santiago said.

The SEIPI head noted that “last year was a bad year. The market was so weak. We would be down by 25 percent.”

Santiago said the fourth quarter of 2011 was the worst quarter.

“The fourth quarter is going to be the worst among all quarters,” Santiago said.

Natural disasters coupled with the global financial issues in Europe and America dampened exports, while the earthquake and tsunami in Japan last year resulted in supply problems, Santiago said.

 The financial crisis, likewise, Santiago said, had a negative effect on demand.

A bright spot Santiago noted is a rebound in consumer spending for electronics, but corporate consumers are still not spending so much on technology.

Unfortunately, though, Santiago also admitted, technical spending of firms has not recovered.

The electronics industry, Santiago elaborated, did not perform well as expected last year because the solar sector did not deliver. The industry expected investments in the solar sector to come in last year.

He said electronic products have gotten cheaper, but the price reduction has not been enough to pull up demand.

SEIPI is hoping to see recovery only by the second half of the year.

For this year, SEIPI is projecting that the first three months would still be bad. However, Santiago said, business would pick up in the second quarter.

On the possible relocation of Japan-based firms here, Santiago said there has been some movements. He said there are some Japanese firms that used their Philippine subsidiaries to produce items that were normally made in Japan.