Foreign Trade: Imports

• Foreign trade is the system by which countries exchange goods and services. Countries trade with each other to obtain things that are of better quality, less expensive or simply different from goods and services produced at home. The goods and services that are bought from other countries are called imports.
• For February 2016, the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) had imported a total volume of 433,163 kilograms (kg). The volume of imports for the month decreased by 4.5% compared to the volume of 453,764 kg recorded in January 2016.
• The region’s Free on Board (FOB) value of imported goods for February 2016 amounted to $64,409,814. This was a decline of 36.3% from last month’s FOB value of $101,029,253.

Imports By Commodity

• Among the commodities, electrical machinery and equipment and parts thereof, aircraft, spacecraft and parts thereof, and nuclear reactors continue to be the region’s top imported commodities for February 2016.
• Electrical machinery and equipment, and parts thereof had the highest import value of $39,028,642 comprising 87,879.5 kg or 20.3% of the total imported goods for February 2016.
• Aircraft, spacecraft, and parts thereof posted as the second highest imported commodity with total import value of $10,274,388. Meanwhile, nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery and mechanical appliance parts thereof ranked third contributing the amount of $8,170,647 to the total import value of goods in the region. This is lower by 1.2% from last month’s total import value.
• Other major commodities imported by the region for February 2016 which comprise 39.9% of the total volume of imported goods were the following: optical, photographic, cinematographic (3.3%), miscellaneous chemical products (1.5%), plastic and articles thereof (18.5%), iron and steel (7.4%), natural and cultured pearls (0%), organic chemical (4.9%), and aluminium and articles thereof (4.3%). These commodities had an aggregated value of $5,296,562 or 8.2% share to the total cost of imports of the region for the month.
• Other imported commodities had an accumulated FOB value of $1,638,945 which consists of only 2.5% of the total value of imported commodities for February 2016.

  Table 2. Imports by Commodity in CAR: January and February 2016

Country of Origin

• CAR largely imported goods from the United State of America, Republic of Korea and Taiwan for February 2016. These goods had a combined value of $48,271,639 comprising 74.9% of the total value of imported commodities for the month.
• Most of the imported commodities originated from United States of America (USA) with total import value of $22,267,739 or 34.6% share on the total imports of CAR. Compared to the previous month’s value of imports of $3,681,503, value of imports increased sixfold in February of this year.
• Imported commodities from the Republic of Korea also rose more than fivefold with import value of $16,268,912 from the amount of $2,977,434 last January. Korean imports comprised 25.3% of the regional aggregated imports. Whereas imports from Taiwan (valued at $9,734,988) had 15.1% share of the total value of imported commodities of the region.
• The region also imported goods from other countries such as Japan (9.3%), Singapore (5.6%), UK of Great Britain and N. Ireland (2.7%), France (1.6%), People’s Republic of China (1.3%), Malaysia (1%), and Italy (0.8%). The value of imports from these countries amounted to $13,774,229 or 21.4% share of all CAR imports.

• Meanwhile, imported goods from countries such as India, Germany, Switzerland, Hongkong, Netherlands, Thailand, Poland, U.A.E., Canada, Belgium, Israel, Portugal, Vietnam, Qatar, Ukraine, U.S. minor outlying islands, Austria, Pakistan, and the Czech Republic accounted to only 2.8% of the total value of imported goods of the region.
• Ten (10) out of the 21 member countries of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) were the primary sources of CAR’s import goods, namely Canada, Hongkong, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, China, Singapore, Japan, Korea, and United States of America. These countries were also the region’s top trading partners with total import receipts amounting to $49,933,064, representing 71.6% of the total imports of the region.
• On the other hand, imports from non-APEC countries had a total value of $14,476,120.00, which comprised 28.4% of imported commodities of the region.

Comparison: Commodity by Country Source

• CAR had spent the amount of $39,028,642 (40.3%) to buy 87,879.5 kg. (32.8%) of electrical machinery and equipment and parts thereof. These commodities mainly originated from the Republic of Korea, United States of America, and Japan.
• Among the countries, CAR mainly imported from the Republic of Korea with total import volume of 28,846.1 kg. consisting of electrical machinery and equipment, and parts thereof. These had a total import value of $5,182.

Technical Notes

Free on Board Value (FOB) - is the value of the goods free on board the carrier at the frontier of the exporting country. It includes inland freight, export duty and other expenses. In addition, the value of goods in the Philippine foreign trade statistics is FOB.

Country of Destination (Exports only) - it is the country where the goods are to be consumed, further processed, or manufactured.

Country of Origin (Imports only) - it is the country where the goods are mined, grown, or manufactured or where each foreign material used or incorporated in a good underwent a change in tariff classification indicating a substantial transformation under the applicable rule of origin for the good.

Exports - the goods and services that are sold to other countries.

Imports - the goods and services that a country buys from other countries.

PSCC (Philippine Standard Commodity Classification) - is used to classify the imported commodities at the most detailed level for statistical purposes.