A decade of imports, exports, and a chronic trade deficit
Eleven years of Philippine trade flows from World Bank's WITS API (2015-2023) plus PSA monthly highlights through Q1 2026. The Philippines has run a goods trade deficit every year — peaking at -USD 67B in 2022 — driven by import-heavy electronics manufacturing inputs and consumer goods. China dominates imports (23% share); the US tops exports.
The Philippines is a chronically import-heavy manufacturing economy: every year for 11 years has been a trade deficit, electronics dominate exports at 53%, and the China-as-#1-import-source / US-as-#1-export-destination split has been stable for years.
Imports have outpaced exports every single year. The gap widens with growth and narrows with crisis — but never closes.
Annual goods trade · 2015-2024 · Imports persistently above exports
Exports minus imports — always negative
Exports growing faster than imports — narrowing the gap
The asymmetry is striking: imports concentrate heavily in China + ASEAN; exports are split more evenly across the US, China, Japan, and Hong Kong.
Where Philippine goods are sold · USD billions
Where Philippine goods come from · USD billions
PH's bilateral trade — exports to and imports from major partner countries
| Country | Exports to (USD B) | Imports from (USD B) | Net Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 11.43 | 9.11 | +2.32 |
| China | 10.65 | 30.93 | -20.28 |
| Japan | 10.43 | 10.92 | -0.49 |
| Hong Kong | 8.77 | — | +8.77 |
| Singapore | 3.52 | 7.39 | -3.87 |
| South Korea | 3.48 | 8.88 | -5.40 |
| Indonesia | — | 12.28 | -12.28 |
| Thailand | 2.93 | 8.19 | -5.26 |
| Malaysia | — | 6.23 | -6.23 |
Over half of all Philippine goods exports are electronic products — making the country tightly coupled to global chip and consumer-electronics cycles.
USD 73.27B total · share by category
Manufactured goods + electronics share over time
Five takeaways for trade policy, supply-chain analysts, and anyone modeling PH macro.
11 years, 11 deficits, no exceptions. PH's manufacturing base depends on imported components (electronics inputs from China/Korea/Japan, fuel, capital goods). Closing the gap requires either currency depreciation or import-substitution — neither is happening at scale.
PH runs a +USD 2.3B surplus with the United States — the only major partner where exports beat imports. Hong Kong adds another +USD 8.8B. Together they finance a chunk of the China deficit.
The -USD 20.3B deficit with China alone is 33% of the total trade deficit. If China imports were balanced 1:1, PH would still have a deficit but only -USD 34B — a fundamentally different macroeconomic picture.
53.4% of exports in one category creates concentration risk. The 2023 export dip (-USD 6B vs 2022) tracked the global semiconductor inventory correction. Diversification into agribusiness or services would smooth this out.
Q1 2026 exports +12.7% YoY vs imports +8.9% YoY. If the spread holds, the trade deficit could narrow for the first time since 2020 (when COVID killed both sides). Watch the Q2 print closely.
Open APIs and named PSA press releases. Reproducible end-to-end.
SDMX JSON via wits.worldbank.org/API/V1/SDMX/V21. Two queries: total trade (reporter=phl, partner=wld, indicators MPRT-TRD-VL + XPRT-TRD-VL) and partner breakdown (partner=all). Annual 2015-2023.
PSA's monthly highlights are PDF-only on the agency site. 2024 full-year + 2025 + Q1 2026 figures sourced from PSA-cited articles in Metrobank Wealth Insights, PNA, and the Congress Policy Brief.
WITS returns SDMX-JSON with separate dimension and observation arrays. Two indicators are returned per query (imports + exports) under the same "All Products" label — order matters: series 0 is imports (higher values), series 1 is exports.
2024 is the last full year. 2025 has total exports only (USD 84.4B); 2026 has only Q1 totals. Partner-country breakdown is 2023 (latest in WITS).
All figures are USD as reported. PSA publishes in USD; PHP equivalents would be ~PHP 11.5T total trade in 2024. Currency swings (USD strength 2022-2024) affect dollar-denominated values independently of physical trade volume.
ph_trade_annual.csv, ph_export_partners_2023.csv, ph_import_partners_2023.csv, ph_export_composition_2024.csv, ph_trade_recent.csv, plus the raw WITS JSON responses for reproducibility.