Philippines: Selected Issues
IMF Staff Country Reports, February 6, 2020
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Bibliographic details
- Published: February 6, 2020
- Series: IMF Staff Country Reports
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9781513529158.002
Export performance amid global trade tensions
- Philippines’ exports of goods have remained stable through the ongoing period of global trade tensions.
- Philippines’ exports have slightly increased in dollar terms since 2017, but they have remained broadly stable in GDP terms.
- The Philippines does not appear to have benefitted much from the US–China trade tensions, but it has performed better than many of its peers at the aggregate level.
Factors explaining resilience and limited gains
- Low participation in global trade as well as in global value chains relative-to-peers seems to explain why the Philippines has not yet been negatively impacted by the trade tensions.
- Despite close trade ties with the United States, the Philippines has not benefitted much from trade diversion originated from the US–China bilateral tariffs, unlike Vietnam and Mexico.
Sectoral and revealed comparative advantages
- The comparative advantages of the Philippines in terms of exports reside in high tech industries, which constitute its main exports.
- The Philippines has a revealed comparative advantage in exporting from high technology industries.
- Disaggregated trade data evidence suggests the Philippines was not able to scale-up its exports to the United States as much as Vietnam and Mexico in many high- to medium-tech goods included in the US tariff lists.
Subject coverage and keywords (as presented)
- Subject: Climate change, Credit, Environment, Exports, Inflation, International trade, Money, Natural disasters, Prices
- Keywords: Climate change, climate change vulnerability, CR, Credit, debt, export, Exports, Global, IMF staff estimate, Inflation, inflation expectation, ISCR, Natural disasters, oil price, Philippines, S&P Capital IQ, trade tension
Source: Philippines: Selected Issues (IMF Staff Country Reports).
Content in this bundle
- Philippines: Selected Issues; IMF Country Report No. 20/37; January 9, 2020