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 March 2016, the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) had imported a total volume of 330,709 kilograms (kg). The volume of imports for the month decreased by 23.7% compared to the volume of 433,163 kg recorded in February 2016.

The region’s Free on Board (FOB) value of imported goods for March 2016 amounted to $74,418,806. This was an incline of 15.5% from last month’s FOB value of $64,409,814.

Imports By Commodity

• Among the commodities, electrical machinery and equipment and parts thereof, aircraft, spacecraft and parts thereof, and nuclear reactors continued to be the region’s top imported commodities for March 2016.
• Electrical machinery and equipment, and parts thereof had the highest import value of $50,764,517 comprising 61,194.3 kg or 68.2% of the total imported goods for March 2016.
• Aircraft, spacecraft, and parts thereof posted as the second highest imported commodity with total import value of $9,388,309. Meanwhile, nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery and mechanical appliance parts thereof ranked third contributing the amount of $8,098,120 to the total import value of goods in the region. This is lower by 0.9% from last month’s total import value.
• Other major commodities imported by the region for March 2016 comprised 6.2% of the total volume of imported goods and were as follows: optical, photographic, cinematographic (1.9%), miscellaneous chemical products (1.2%), iron and steel (0.8%), plastic and articles thereof (0.7%), aluminium and articles thereof (0.5%), natural and cultured pearls (0.5%), and organic chemical (0.5%). These commodities had an aggregated value of $4,615,799 or 6.2% share to the total cost of imports of the region for the month.
• Other imported commodities had an accumulated FOB value of $1,552,061 which consisted of only 2.1% of the total value of imported commodities for March 2016.

Country of Origin

• CAR largely imported goods from the United State of America (USA), Republic of Korea and Taiwan for March 2016. These goods had a combined value of $58,509,380.00, comprising 78.6% 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 $24,062,328 or 32.3% share of the total imports of CAR. The value of imports for March 2016 increased as compared to the previous month’s $22,267,739 import value.
• Imported commodities from the Republic of Korea also rose 35.1% with import value of $21,972,340 from the amount of $16,268,912 last February. Korean imports comprised 29.5% of the regional aggregated imports. Whereas imports from Taiwan which was valued at $12,474,712 had 16.8% share of the total value of imported commodities of the region.
• The region also imported goods from Japan (7.7%), Singapore (3.6%), UK of Great Britain and N. Ireland (2.5%), France (1.2%), People’s Republic of China (2.2%), Malaysia (1%), and Germany (0.7%). The value of imports from these countries amounted to $14,025,643 or 18.9% share of all CAR imports.

• Meanwhile, imported goods from other countries such as India, Italy, Switzerland, Hongkong, Netherlands, Thailand, Poland, Austria, Canada, Belgium, Israel, Costa Rica, Denmark, Qatar, Turkey, Morocco, U.S. minor outlying islands, and Romania accounted to only 2.5% of the total value of imported goods of the region.
• Ten (10) out of the twenty-one (21) member countries of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) were the primary sources of CAR’s import goods, namely Canada, Hongkong, Thailand, Malaysia, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and United States of America. These countries were also the region’s top trading partners with total import receipts amounting to $70,034,239 representing 94.1% of the total imports of the region.
• On the other hand, imports from non-APEC countries had a total value of $4,375,567, which comprised 5.9% of imported commodities of the region.
• CAR had spent the amount of $50,764,517 (68.2%) to buy 61,194.30 kg (18.5%) of electrical machinery and equipment and parts thereof. These commodities mainly originated from the Republic of Korea, United States of America, and Japan.

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.