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THE government on Wednesday said it has revised the
Philippines’ trade deficit figures for last year.
In a statement, the
National Statistics Office (NSO) said the final export figure
was raised to $50.47 billion from the earlier estimate of $50.27
billion.
The final value of imports was
restated to $55.51 billion, an increase of $197 million from $55.32
billion previously.
“The resulting trade balance in goods
amounted to a deficit of $5.05 billion, an increase of $1 million
from the preliminary series of $5.04 million,” the NSO said.
The NSO said the final export and
import figures include export documents that were received after the
cut-off dates.
In 2005, the NSO revised the
final 2004 trade deficit to $4.36 billion instead of the $713
million reported earlier, resulting from the adoption of a new
methodology for computing imports, and the receipt of additional
export documents that failed to meet cut-off dates.
This revision however spooked the
market, which suspected that the government was massaging its
numbers to paint a brighter trade picture than was supported by
data.
The new methodology arose from
corrections made in 2001 after imports that year were understated.
The National Statistical
Coordination Board (NSCB) finalized and approved in May 2005 the
methodology recommended by an interagency committee on trade
statistics that included the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
--Darwin G. Amojelar
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