NEDA-7 projects recovery in the export sector this year

CEBU, Philippines - Although most of the major industries in the region performed relatively well, the National Economic and Development Authority is expecting an improvement in the export sector by this year as the industry experienced a setback and as the foreign trade weakened.

NEDA–7 Assistant Regional Director Efren Carreon cited in a conference that the preliminary indicators of the performance of the regional economy in 2011 suggest that the Central Visayas was able to sustain the growth momentum realized in 2010.

With the recorded increase in the tourism market, he noted that the tourism sector has been recovering in the year 2010 and is able to sustain its performance in 2011.

He added that foreign visitor arrivals increased at faster pace with 15.9% increase last year while the domestic arrivals with 3.6% in 2011 is lower than 5.1% recorded in 2010. 

As to the number of passengers, there is an increase of 13.9% for domestic passengers and 31.7% growth for international passengers from 2010 to last year.

Carreon said that the aviation was not just the industry that benefitted such growth but also the shipping industry sustained its recovery.

In 2011, foreign cargo traffic registered a negative growth of 25.7% after an 11% growth in 2010 while the domestic cargo also posted a negative growth of 22.4% last year.

To meet the increasing demand of travellers, shipping companies expanded their operations in which he cited Cokaliong as an example which opened its shipping services along the Cebu-Ozamis-Iligan.

However, he said that the foreign trade weakened based on the 2011 regional economic performance wherein the growth rate of exports value was reported from 28.2% in 2010 to -8.5% in 2011.

He added that the export industry failed to recover last year mainly because of the slow recovery of the US economy and the weakening of the European economies.

Carreon then noted that NEDA believes and anticipated an improvement in the export industry in 2012 with a 6.4% Gross Domestic Product increase in the first quarter of this year. — Grace Melanie I. Lacamiento

“The trend will be reversed. Ang export sector ay tumitibay. And Central Visayas is watching the performance of the industry to rise,” he said during the Regional Small and Medium Enterprises Conference.

He further revealed that the government is already pioneering a public private partnership scheme for major programs and projects such as the P7.5 B - Panglao airport in Bohol, P1.5 B - Dumaguete North Road project, improvement of the Siquijor airport to be implemented on the third quarter of 2012, the Bus Rapid Transit and Mactan Cebu International Airport passenger terminal project.  (FREEMAN)