## 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

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### 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).*

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## Content in this bundle

- **Philippines: Selected Issues; IMF Country Report No. 20/37; January 9, 2020**
  - [Philippines: Selected Issues; IMF Country Report No. 20/37; January 9, 2020 (Markdown version)](/-/media/files/publications/cr/2020/english/1phlea2020002.pdf.md){rel="alternate" type="text/markdown"}
  - [Philippines: Selected Issues; IMF Country Report No. 20/37; January 9, 2020 (PDF)](/-/media/files/publications/cr/2020/english/1phlea2020002.pdf){rel="external" type="application/pdf"}

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/cr/issues/2020/02/05/philippines-selected-issues-49022_