The Philippines’ February imports rose 4.9% to $4.993 billion from $4.761 billion in the same month last year but down 2.8% from January’s $5.134 billion.
This brought imports for the first two months of the year to $10.126 billion, an improvement of 0.6% from $10.063 billion during the same two-month period last year.
Accounting for 28.7% of the aggregate import bill in February were payments for electronic products which amounted to $1.433 billion. This is down 5.1% over last year’s figure of $1.510 billion but up 6.6% from $1.344 billion month-on-month.
Representing 20.1% or $1.006 billion of the total were imports of mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials, a 2.8% decline from $1.034 billion in February 2011.
Transport equipment imports reached $451.91 million, up 53.9% from the previous year’s $293.65 million.
Japan was the country’s biggest source of imports for February with a 13.4% share of the total or $667.15 million, higher by 27.2% from $524.51 million.
The US was the second biggest source, with a market share of 10.9%. The Philippines bought US goods totaling $542.76 million, an increase of 8.2% from $501.60 million.
China came in third, accounting for 8.9% of the total or $445.37 million from $367.52 million, a growth of 21.2%.
Other major sources of imports for February were Singapore, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.
