ASEAN trade and China exports dominance

As it is the Chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) this year, the Philippines is hosting many meetings prior to the ASEAN Summit plus related summits with major economies — the US, Canada, Japan, Korea, India, Australia, Russia, the EU, etc. — in November.

- BIENVENIDO S. OPLAS, JR.

Recent meetings included the 18th Meeting of the Committee of the Whole (CoW) for the ASEAN Economic Community on Jan. 25, the 34th Meeting of the ASEAN Trade Facilitation Joint Consultative Committee (ATF-JCC) on Jan. 26-28, and the 45th ASEAN+3 Bond Market Forum (ABMF) and Related Events on Feb. 2-4.

There will be an interesting event, the ASEAN Editors and Economic Opinion Leaders Forum, sponsored by the ASEAN Committee on Business and Investment Promotion (CBIP), on Feb. 24 here in Manila.

Last week, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) released the full year 2025 merchandise exports and imports data, along with 2024 data. I checked the previous PSA data for 2022 and 2023 and compiled it all in a single table here.

One can see that our merchandise or goods exports increased from $73.3 billion in 2024 to $84.4 billion in 2025. Our merchandise exports also increased, from $127.6 billion in 2024 to $133.6 billion in 2025. This is a bit lower than 2022's imports of $137.2 billion.