Philippines January trade deficit likely widened on poor export growth

The Philippines will release January trade balance and import data on 25 March.

Standard Chartered notes its forecasts as follows:

• We expect the trade deficit to have widened to USD 910mn from USD 70mn in December. 
  
  
• Exports (for which January data was released earlier) contracted for a second consecutive month, falling 0.5% y/y, owing to declines in petroleum products (-82.2% y/y) and non-electronic manufactured goods (-15.8%). 
  
  
• We expect imports to have fallen 11.5% y/y owing to lower energy import values. 
  
  
• The Philippines is likely to face headwinds to export growth in 2015 due to poor domestic demand in Asia, which could lead reverse the narrowing of the trade deficit seen in 2014.