The Philippine Daily Inquire-Aug 17
Among the ASEAN-5, our export earnings have consistently been the lowest; worse, we’re slipping farther and farther behind. In 2005, we trailed Indonesia by $45 billion (we earned $41 billion against their $86 billion). Last year, the gap was already more than double that, at $100 billion ($69 billion vs. $169 billion). In 2007, our exports ($50.5 billion) still exceeded Vietnam’s ($48.6 billion). Last year, Vietnam made $214 billion, even more than Indonesia, which it had overtaken three years ago. The latest export data show that we continued to slip even farther behind. In the first quarter, our exports dropped by 5.5 percent, when our neighbors continued to post impressive growth in theirs, from Indonesia’s 8.7 percent to Vietnam’s zooming 25.1 percent. Many have begun to notice this glaring anomaly, and ask: How can we be moving in the opposite direction from our neighbors, and the world? What are we doing so differently, and so wrongly, that our export performance, already bad as it has been, has even turned for the worse?
Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/115427/why-cant-we-export-more#ixzz5OPswRO3U
First published in: The Philippine Daily Inquirer
