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Commerce says garment sale decline is 21 percent
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Posted on Feb 22 2006
The Department of Commerce corrected on Wednesday its computation of garment sales in 2005, saying that its decline was only 21 percent, not 39.4 percent as it had earlier reported.
Commerce Secretary James Santos admitted that the department made an error when compiling the figures for the quarterly economic indicators on garment sales.
Commerce had said in its latest report that garment sale value for calendar year 2005 plunged to $500.8 million or 39.4 percent from the previous year’s $826 million.
“It’s an error. We forgot to add one quarter. The correct amount is $650.8 million, which reflects a 21-percent decline, not 39 percent,” said Santos in an interview.
He said that Governor’s special assistant for trade relations Richard A. Pierce also called him up, pointing out the discrepancy in the computation.
Santos said that based on Department of Finance data, garment exports value totaled $151.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2005; $165.1 million, third quarter; $156.2 million, second quarter; and $177.6 million, first quarter 2005.
Garment sale totaled $826 million in 2004, $792.1 million in 2003, and $831.3 million in 2002.
The drop in sales last year also meant a drop in government user fee collection.
The government collects 3.7 percent user fee on all locally manufactured and finished apparel products.
Finance earlier reported that it collected $126 million in user fee for fiscal year 2005, which is $4 million lower than the annual average collection prior to the 2005 World Trade Organization’s lifting of quotas in January 2005.
