Philippines posts $4.6 billion trade deficit in December

MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines posted a trade deficit of $4.6 billion for December, the biggest trade gap in three months, government data showed on Thursday.

That brought the full-year trade deficit to $58.3 billion compared with the 2021 gap of $42.2 billion.

Imports in December declined 9.9% to $10.3 billion from a year earlier, the deepest decline since January 2021, the Philippine Statistics Authority said.

Exports fell 9.7% to $5.7 billion, the sharpest drop since August 2020.

(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales and Enrico Dela Cruz; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor)