The Philippines' electronics industry will meet its year-end export target of 10-percent growth despite the continued appreciation of the peso against the dollar, a local newspaper said Thursday.

"The 10-percent target is still doable in spite of the peso and the slowdown in the consumption of the U.S. market," the Philippine Star quoted Ernesto B. Santiago, executive director of the Semiconductor and Electronics Industries in the Philippines Inc. as saying.

Electronics exports is the Philippines' top dollar earner, which in April amounted to 2.56 billion U.S. dollars, only 1.1 percent up from that of the same period last year. They had grown 8.7 percent year-on-year in March, the report said.

Total investments in the local electronic industry are expected to exceed the 1-billion-U.S. dollar mark for the first time in seven years, because for the first half of this year, they already reached 680 million U.S. dollars, Santiago added.

However, the adverse effects of the continued strengthening of the peso to the export business were also seen. For a small Filipino semiconductor exporter, the loss is 400 U.S. dollars for every one peso appreciation against the dollar, according to the report.

Instead of participating a government-led hedging fund, the industry was asking the administration to help cut the companies' energy cost by adjusting the power rates, the Philippine Star said, because up to 30 percent of their expense is power-related.

The Philippine peso was trading strongly at 46 to 1 against the U.S. dollar because of strong dollar inflows brought by overseas workers and foreign investments, the report said.

Source: Xinhua