The country’s trade deficit for January yawned its widest in 5 months by 27.2 percent to $5.74 billion, the biggest since the record monthly deficit of $5 billion in August.
This is because exports fell sharply, which could put pressure on the peso for the near term, said an Inquirer story today.
The trade gap in January widened by 27.2 percent to $5.74 billion, the biggest since the record monthly deficit of $6 billion in August, from $4.5 billion in the same month last year, preliminary data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed on Tuesday.
Exports saw the steepest decline in nearly three years, down 13.5 percent to $5.2 billion from a year earlier, while imports grew 3.9 percent to $11 billion from the same period in 2022.
It was the first monthly rise for imports in three months.
The January trade gap was worse than the deficit of around $4.3 billion that ING had projected.
For the full-year 2022, the country’s trade deficit increased by 38 percent to $58.3 billion from year-ago level, as imports showed signs of recovery from market disruptions caused by the global outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020.
“The persistent trade deficit in the Philippines points to depreciation pressure for…the Philippine peso in the near term,” ING senior economist Nicholas Mapa said.
The peso has fallen more than 2 percent since hitting 53.65 per U.S. dollar on Feb. 3, which was the strongest close so far this year. It was at 55.03, as of 0216 GMT.