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How dependent is China on the Philippines?

In 2024, the Philippines sold $18.7 billion to China, 0.87% of its imports, ranking 29th among its suppliers. Its share was 0.95% in 2019 and 0.2% in 1995. In 3 products it sells more than 50% of what China buys of them (in 0, more than 75%); what China buys from the Philippines in those products (dominated value) adds up to $1.5 billion, 0.07% of its imports.

Summary

Share of its imports
0.9%
Value imported
$18.7billion
Rank among its suppliers
29th
Products where it sells over 50%
3
Products where it sells over 75%
0
Dominated value
$1.5billion
Share of total imports
0.1%

Trend

Trend in shares

The Philippines went from 0.2% to 0.87% of what China buys

Share (%)

  • Philippines 0.87%

Source: CEPII BACI

Show the numbers
YearValue (USD millions)ShareRank
19952760.2%38
19964290.31%33
19973430.24%43
19985340.4%31
19999420.62%21
20001,6570.8%23
20011,9060.85%21
20023,1491.2%18
20036,0911.6%12
20048,4721.8%12
200512,3882.2%13
200616,7082.5%9
200724,1672.9%8
200821,2032.2%13
200912,0011.4%19
201015,6921.3%19
201112,4840.86%26
201218,3211.3%20
201317,7431.1%24
201413,1000.82%29
201516,7291.3%22
201615,4511.2%22
201720,1291.3%19
201820,4121.2%24
201916,4350.95%28
202018,6361.1%21
202119,8360.91%27
202220,3020.89%28
202318,6010.85%28
202418,7450.87%29

Products where the Philippines sells more than half

ProductSupplierShareSecondValue
Nickel orePhilippines50.4%Finland · 10.8%$1.5 billion
Plastic waste and scrapPhilippines59.2%Saudi Arabia · 10.2%$34 million
Lead scrapPhilippines52%United Kingdom · 26.9%$5 million

A product has a dominant supplier when a single country sells more than 50% of what is bought of it; we flag it separately above 75%.

Are there other suppliers in the world?

  • The Philippines sells 39.6% of what the world exports of nickel ore; next come Zambia (10.8%), Finland (8.2%) and New Caledonia (6.9%). The rest of the world exported 2 times what China buys from the Philippines.
  • The Philippines sells 2.1% of what the world exports of plastic waste and scrap; next come United States (9.9%), Germany (9.6%) and Japan (9.1%). The rest of the world exported 88.9 times what China buys from the Philippines.
  • The Philippines sells 1.2% of what the world exports of lead scrap; next come United States (17.7%), France (13.4%) and United Kingdom (11.9%). The rest of the world exported 121 times what China buys from the Philippines.

Exports from the rest of the world already have buyers; the figure shows scale, not availability.

Seen from the Philippines

China is the Philippines’ 1st-largest customer, with 18.9% of its exports.

Sources and method

Sources and licenses

Methodology

The data come from CEPII BACI (Etalab 2.0 licence), which reconciles what the exporting and the importing country report, in current USD, FOB. Data up to 2024.

Dependence is the share of a country’s imports (or exports) that each partner accounts for. It does not measure whether a product has a substitute or how much it would cost to change supplier.

The concentration index (HHI) adds up the square of each partner’s share, in percent: it runs from 0 to 10,000. Its equivalent is 10,000 ÷ HHI, the number of partners of the same size that would give that value.

Products are HS4 headings of the 1992 nomenclature (some combine different goods), with a floor of $1 million per product and country.

The EU is the 27 current members in every year; the United Kingdom is outside the EU throughout the series.

Re-exports: countries that act as redistribution hubs carry their notice and the figures are not corrected.