The
trade of forest products is an important component of the Philippine economy.
From the 1960s to the mid 1980s, the Philippines was a net exporter of forest
products, particularly logs and sawnwood that were consistently among the top
10 principal exports of the country. The 1990s saw the country’s transformation
from a net exporter to a net importer of forest products. The change was mainly
attributable to the government’s forest resource conservation policy to
respond to the global call for sustainable forest management. Notwithstanding
the deceleration in the export of primary forest products, the production of
secondary and tertiary wood products made progress owing to the encouragement
given by the government to export products with high value added. The import of
logs and lumber was liberalized to support the requirements of the local
wood-processing industry.
Information on forest product trade is very useful to quite a number of users, notably decision-makers in the government and the business sector. It is equally important for international groups such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) and others in mapping the direction towards maintaining a healthy environment.
In
connection with the desk study on forest production and trade supported by the
EC-FAO Partnership Programme, a study on the collection and analysis of trade
data was undertaken in the early half of 2002. The study is an in-depth
discussion on trade of forest products, spanning several years. This paper
presents the experiences of the author while undertaking the study.
The
National Statistics Office (NSO) is the sole agency of the government with the
mandate to compile foreign trade statistics. Foreign trade statistics are
compiled by the NSO from copies of import and export documents submitted by
importers and exporters to the Bureau of Customs as required by law. The
sources of export data are the Export Permit, the Export Declaration and the
EPZA Export Tally. General exporters use the Export Permit; exporters
registered with the Board of Investments (BOI) use the Export Declaration; and
the EPZA Export Tally is used by exporters inside the Export Processing Zone
(EPZ). Copies of these trade documents are sent to the NSO for compilation and
processing. The documents are sorted by month, by port, by single or multiple
commodity entries and by value.
The
Philippines classifies commodities in trade in accordance with the 1993 Revised
Philippine Standard Commodity Classification or the PSCC, which is a
classification scheme aligned with the United Nations International Trade Classification (SITC),
and the Harmonized Commodity
Description and Coding System of the Philippines otherwise known as the
Harmonized System of the Philippines or the HSP.
Trade
data are published through the Foreign Trade Statistics of the Philippines, which
is published annually in two volumes – Volume 1 for Imports and Volume 2 for
Exports. Monthly export and import statistics are released 30 to 45 days after
the reference month. Published data consist of the volume and value of imports
and exports, by commodity, on a national scale. The Forest Management Bureau
(FMB) accesses these data for a complete picture of forestry trade. Trade data
form a significant portion of the Philippine Forestry Statistics Yearbook
published by the FMB.
The
following products were analysed in relation to export and import:
Roundwood:
Sawlogs/veneer
logs
Pulpwood
Other
industrial roundwood
Wood charcoal
Sawnwood
Veneer sheets
Plywood
Particle
boards
Fibreboards
Hardboards
Medium density
fibreboards (MDF)
Insulating
boards
As required in the Terms of
Reference of the desk study, the analysis of trade statistics covered 1996 to 2000.
Analysis
of trade data was conducted for both national and regional perspectives. The
national level covered all the imports and exports nationwide for a certain
period. Data were also analysed according to the region where the traded
products originated for imports and according to destination for exports.
The Philippines is divided into 16 administrative regions comprising
76 provinces located in the three main islands of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. There are seven regions in Luzon, three
in Visayas and six in Mindanao. Almost all of these regions trade forest products
with other countries.
The
study mainly analysed the volume and value of forest products traded and the
direction of trade. The volume was expressed in appropriate units of
measurement following the units used by FAO for all products except for wood
chips and particles and wood residues.
Products
were expressed in the following units:
Cubic meters:
Roundwood
Sawnwood
Veneer sheets
Plywood
Particle
boards
Fibreboards
Metric
tonnes:
Wood charcoal
Wood pulp
Paper and
paperboard products
Kilograms:
Wood chips and
particles
Wood residues
The corresponding values were all
presented in US dollars – free on board (FOB) for exports, and cost, insurance and freight (CIF) for imports.
The direction of trade was analysed similarly indicating the target country for
exported forest products and the exporting country for imported products.
The
five-year data were analysed using statistical matrices that were constructed based on the
raw data gathered from the NSO. Trend analysis of each product both at the national
and regional level was done, examining the year-to-year performance by product to identify how
government policies have impacted on the development of wood-based industries. The total volume
and value for five years were obtained to show the magnitude of trade involved
for each product during the period; the five-year average was then calculated for
easy discussion and comparison between products.
Percentages
were computed .to reveal the extent of the share of a particular commodity to
the total forest product trade in terms of value for a particular year. In a
way this showed which products performed satisfactorily and have to be
sustained and those that will need a further boost from the government.
The
collection and analysis of data was not easy. Some issues needed more attention
than expected. They were, inter alia:
The
NSO publishes trade data at the national level only. Regional data, however,
can be obtained on request with some consideration for the extra effort spent
in retrieving the data. The data obtained from the NSO were unprocessed, or
files containing entries of transactions as they occurred during a certain
period. All of the data needed for the analysis, however, could be extracted
from the files (such as volume, value, the port where the transaction took
place, the product code, etc.).
Further
processing was undertaken with the aid of a customized programme developed for
the analysis. The programme facilitated rapid sorting by product and provided a
comprehensive data set on forest product trade, making the analysis convenient.
Units of measurement
The
NSO uses volume and weight as units of measurement. Roundwood, sawnwood,
plywood and veneer are expressed in cubic decimeters and the other products
included in the study, in net or gross kilograms. Conversions were made to
conform with the units of measurement used by FAO, with those expressed in
cubic decimeters being converted to cubic meters. The other products (except
wood chips and particles and wood residues) were converted from kilograms to
metric tonnes. These products were wood charcoal, pulp and paper products.
Particle boards and fibreboards, originally expressed in kilograms, were
converted to cubic meters.
Conversion
factors: Wood chips and particles and wood residues, however, remained in
kilograms instead of cubic meters since conversion factors for these products
were not available.
Cross-referencing
of product codes between the SITC and the HSP was devised to match products in
a particular product grouping. However, one particular code under roundwood in
the SITC is missing. Roundwood in the SITC is classified into treated (247.3)
and not treated (247.4 and 247.5). The cross-referencing, however, did not
include the former. Since 247.3 is an integral feature of our roundwood trade,
this category was considered in the analysis.
The
collection and analysis of trade data as a component of the desk study was an
enriching experience in terms of providing information, not only data,
regarding national trends in export and import. The national, as well as the
regional analysis, afforded an opportunity to discover the dynamics of foreign
trade and how it affects the economy. Information on trade is also an important
input for formulating policies to enable a country to keep abreast with
globalization trends. Studies of this kind should be sustained so that the data
are transformed into meaningful information for policy- and decision-making.