PHILIPPINE imports rose 1.9% in September to $9.302 billion from $9.133 billion last year, according to latest data from the National Statistics Office.
Accounting for 35.5% of the aggregate import bill, payments for Electronic Products in September 2008 amounted to $1.724 billion, down 26.1% over last year’s $2.332 billion.
Imports of Mineral Fuels, Lubricants and Related Materials in September 2008 ranked second with a 20% share, posting a growth of 52.1% to $970.32 million over the previous year’s $637.77 million.
Cereals and Cereal Preparations, contributing 5.7% to the total import bill, was the third top import in September with payments at $277.53 million from last year’s $81.28 million or an increase of 241.5%.
Industrial Machinery and Equipment ranking fourth with a share of 4.8% at $231.20 million worth of imports, went up 31.6% from its year-ago level of $175.68 million.
Transport Equipment, accounting for 4.6% of the total imports, ranked fifth as the foreign bill amounted to $221.17 million, grew 8.5% from $203.86 million last year.
The US was the country’s biggest source of imports for September 2008 with 12.6% share of the total import bill, down 8.3% to $613.94 million from $669.29 million in September 2007.
Japan was the second biggest source of imports with an 11.6% share with recorded payments worth $563.93 million and a decline of 2.8% from $579.85 million in September 2007.
Saudi Arabia came third; accounting for 11.3% share of the total import bill. Singapore was fourth, accounting for 10.1% share.
Other major sources of imports for the month of September 2008 were China, $378.27 million; Taiwan, $303.83 million; Republic of Korea, $277.05 million; Thailand, $219.96 million; Vietnam, $211.92 million; and, Hong Kong $188.90 million.
