What’s happening to our exports?

(Part I)

Today, many of us are asking: What’s happening to our exports? How are we performing compared to our neighboring countries in Southeast Asia and Asia Pacific?

Let me just share with you the 2016 export and import performance in some of neighboring countries in Southeast Asia and Asia Pacific including the Philippines, to wit:

Many of us cannot help but wonder why the value of our exports is dismally low vis-à-vis the exports of some of our neighboring countries in Southeast Asia. What is wrong? Are our export incentives not attractive enough for our foreign investors? Are incentives for our exporters and export sub-contractors not encouraging enough? Are there subsidies, if any, being enjoyed by our exporters? Are our export products expanding or shrinking? Are our export strategies being updated to attune to international market conditions? Don’t we have aggressive marketing and export promotion programs in the international markets? Do we have sufficient financial assistance being extended to our exporters? Are foreign buyers shying away from us because of the high cost of doing business in our country? Are we consistently aggressive in attending international trade fairs? Are our government policies encouraging more Filipinos to join the corps of committed exporters? Do we have consistent, stable government policies on incentives and regulatory requirements? Do we have skilled and dedicated trade negotiators, trade attachés and other export officials? Do we have a competent export intelligence group monitoring what’s happening in other counties? Whatever the reason/s for our poor performance in exports, we should not lose hope. Our history shows that we as a people have always been gifted with an astounding degree of fighting spirit.

Let us be inspired by the story of the miracle recovery of Japan after World War II. And pray for an economic miracle for our country. If you remember, after World War II, Japan’s economy was in shambles and its people were morally and economically devastated. Japan lacked the major natural resources (coal, iron, and oil) necessary for running a modern economy. It had only 14.8 percent arable land. Also, at that time most of the Japanese business people only spoke Japanese and knew little about US western European markets, cultures and history. Pre-war Japanese products had a worldwide reputation for cheap and poorly-made products. Thirty-five (35) years later there was a complete turnaround in Japan’s economy. Japan lost the military war but clearly won an economic war. Today, Japan stands for quality and value. Japan’s products penetrate deeply into every corner of the world with such names as Sony, Toyota, Canon, and Seiko. Since the early 1970’s, Japan had managed to achieve global leadership in industries thought to be dominated by western impregnable giants in automobiles, motorcycles, watches, cameras, optical instruments, shipbuilding, calculators, and so on. Japan’s strategy is worth studying and emulating with modifications to adapt to our own needs, conditions and opportunities. We can extract powerful lessons about corporate strategy from the Japanese experience. (To be continued)

Have a joyful day! (For comments/ reactions please send to Ms. Villafuerte’s email: villafuerte_nelly@ yahoo.com).