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Philippine exports plunge 40% in December
Posted: 10 February 2009 1229 hrs
Philippine exports saw their biggest fall on record in December plunging 40.4% on-year

MANILA: Philippine exports saw their biggest fall on record in December plunging 40.4 per cent year-on-year on the back of the global economic slowdown, the government said Tuesday.

It was the sharpest monthly fall since the government started recording export data in 1987.

The drop was largely anticipated given the global slowdown, Ricardo Puig, analyst at ATR-Kim Eng Securities told Dow Jones Newswires.

The National Statistics Office said December exports were dragged down by a sharp contraction in electronics shipments and substantially weaker sales to major markets in China, Japan and the United States.

"Preliminary exports data showed that shipments in December dropped 40.4 per cent to US$2.67 billion from the year-earlier period's US$4.48 billion," the government said.

For 2008, exports declined 2.9 per cent to US$49.02 billion from US$50.47 billion in the previous year.

Electronics, which accounted for half of the country's exports in December, declined 47.6 per cent year on year to US$1.34 billion.

Shipments in December to the United States slipped 20.8 per cent, while those to Japan and China fell 28.5 and 57.9 per cent, respectively.