The Philippines' balance of payments (BOP) position for full-year 2018 posted a deficit of 2.3 billion US dollars, "significantly higher" than the $863 million deficit recorded a year ago, the BSP has said.
"This development was brought about by the rise in the current account deficit as the trade-in-goods deficit continued to widen," the central bank said in its statistics on Friday.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said the current account yielded a deficit of $7.9 billion or 2.4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2018, higher than the $2.1 billion deficit (0.7 per cent of GDP) registered in 2017, reports Xinhua.
This developed as the widening deficit in the trade-in-goods account more than offset the higher net receipts posted in the trade-in-services, and primary and secondary income accounts, the BSP said.
The lender said the trade-in-goods deficit for full-year 2018 rose by 21.9 per cent to $49 billion, reflective of the 9.4 per cent expansion in imports of goods and the 0.3 per cent decline in exports of goods.
Exports of goods dropped to $51.7 billion in 2018 from $51.8 billion in the previous year owing mainly to lower export shipments of coconut and mineral products, the BSP said.
The BSP said imports of goods expanded to $100.7 billion in 2018 from $92 billion in 2017.
The central bank said the 9.4 per cent increase was attributed to higher imports across all major commodity groups, notably raw materials and intermediate goods, indicating increased domestic production activity.