Philippine trade deficit widened to $4.174B in October

The Philippine trade deficit widened in October even as exports contracted at a faster rate than imports, data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on Tuesday revealed. Preliminary data showed that the balance of trade in goods (BoT-G) posted a $4.174-billion deficit in October, higher than the $3.583-billion deficit in September, and the $3.313-billion deficit the previous year. A deficit indicates that the value of a country's imports exceeded export receipts, while a surplus indicates more export shipments than imports. Exports for the month were recorded at $6.364 billion, reflecting a 17.5% decline from $7.711 billion the previous year, and lower than the $6.732 billion in September. The biggest annual drop was seen in the export of electronic products, which fell by $1.476 billion to $3.623 billion, followed by copper concentrates by $43.09 million to $13.97 million, coconut oil by $23.22 million to $114.57 million, gold by $15.21 million to $76.58 million, ...