International trade in goods in the Philippines collapsed in April, Panjiva's analysis of official data shows, with a 59.8% slump compared to a year earlier. That was led by a 65.3% drop in imports as much for the retail and manufacturing economy went into lockdown due to coronavirus while exports declined by 50.8%.

That included a 41.9% slump in exports of semiconductors, the single-largest export line, which lagged the general resilience in chip exports across Asia. The latter included a 5.3% rise in shipments across China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan as outlined in Panjiva's research of May 26.

The drop in exports from the Philippines was the third-worst in the region, after India and Pakistan which dropped by 60.3% and 54.2%, respectively, in April, Panjiva's analysis of S&P Global Market Intelligence data shows.

Taken together, the 15 countries in Asia tracked by Panjiva experienced a 9.9% year-over-year drop in exports in April. That marked the fourth straight decline and the 11th in the past 12, showing there are significant challenges for regional trade beyond just COVID-19.

The data for May suggests the slowdown may be losing steam. Chinese export order sentiment has improved, though remains deeply negative. Exports from the five countries that have reported so far show a 6.6% average decline in May compared to a year earlier, helped by a downturn of just 3.3% in both China and Taiwan.

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Christopher Rogers is a senior researcher at Panjiva, which is a business line of S&P Global Market Intelligence, a division of S&P Global Inc. This content does not constitute investment advice, and the views and opinions expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of S&P Global Market Intelligence. Links are current at the time of publication. S&P Global Market Intelligence is not responsible if those links are unavailable later.