SALES abroad of Philippine-made goods rose to a four-month high at the start of the second quarter despite a contraction in electronics shipments, the country’s key export.

The National Statistics Office on Friday said exports rose 19.1 percent to $4.3 billion in April from $3.6 billion recorded in the same month last year.

On a monthly basis, export earnings however fell by 1.2 percent from $4.353 billion in March this year.

Last April’s performance led four-month exports to grow 10.6 percent to $16.5 billion, or below the government’s full-year growth target of 13 percent.

Electronics, which account for 49.9 percent of the total exports revenue in April, fell by 2.1 percent to $2.1 billion from $2.2 billion last year.

Month-on-month, electronic products also declined by 4.1 percent from $2.239 billion in March.

Electronics shipments in the first four months of the year contracted by 1.97 percent to $8.5 billion.

The Semiconductors and Electronics Industries in the Philippines earlier said the 8 percent to 12 percent growth target this year is “very difficult” to achieve because of the disasters in Japan and the political tension in the Middle East and Northern Africa region.

The electronics industry expects to grow at the low-end of its target.

Offsetting the weakness in electronics last April were coconut oil, garments, metal products.

The NSO said higher demand for coconut oil saw exports grow by 80.9 percent to $194.03 million in April from last year’s $107.25 million.

“Improving sales of non-manufacturing products, especially agro-based and mineral products, will provide support for continued growth in exports this year should the electronics industry slow down due to softening demand,” Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Cayetano Paderanga Jr. said.

Paderanga said the continued favorable world market prices for coconut products and copper pushed exports growth of agro-based and mineral products.
“Coconut oil prices have been on an uptrend as a result of tight supply of copra from the Philippines, while copper price gained from re-stocking in China and the shrinking production among major exporters,” he said.

Other gainers were cathodes and section of cathodes of refined copper with earnings of $175.58 million, and articles of apparel and clothing accessories with earnings of $132.26 million.

Sales of woodcrafts and furniture amounted to $127.84 million, up 81.6 percent from $70.40 million last year.

Rounding up the list of the top 10 exports for April were metal components excluding brakes and servo-brakes, $56.68 million; ignition wiring set and other wiring sets used in vehicles, aircrafts and ships consisting only of electrical wiring harness for motor vehicles, $54.70 million; bananas, $45.80 million; petroleum products including refined petroleum products, manufactured from crude petroleum oil imported on consignment basis, $43.95 million; and gold extracted from copper ores and concentrates, $43.34 million.

Receipts from the top 10 exports reached $3.020 billion, or 70.2 percent of the total.

Notwithstanding the string of disasters in Japan, Paderanga said that country’s demand for goods from the Philippines expanded mostly because of an increase in the shipments of food and electronic products.

Japan including Okinawa emerged as the Philippines’ top export market in April with earnings of $741.88 million, up 20.2 percent from $617.10 million last year.

Trailing Japan was the United States at $567.38 million; People’s Republic of China, $490.26 million; and Singapore, $458.56 million.

Other top 10 markets for April were Hong Kong with sales of $425.37 million; Taiwan, $219.89 million; Republic of Korea, $211.47 million; Netherlands, $205.39 million; Thailand, $193.31 million; and Germany, $131.84 million.

Export receipts from the country’s top 10 markets amounted to $3.645 billion.

The Department of Trade and Industry had said that the country’s exports could exceed 10-percent growth this year on higher demand of coconut oil, garments and furniture.