MANILA, Philippines (1st UPDATE) - For the first time in 12 months, the country's merchandise exports posted a single-digit decline in October indicating that demand is slowly recovering after the global downturn.

Data from the National Statistics Office showed that Philippine export revenues fell 8.3% in October to $3.66 billion, better than the 18.3% drop recorded in the previous month. Since October 2008, exports have been declining at a range of 11% to 41%.

For the first 10 months of 2009, exports dropped 27% to $31.3 billion from last year's $42.89 billion.

Shipments of electronic products, which account for 59.1% of total export revenues, plunged 7.4% to $2.162 billion from last year's $2.335 billion. This was mainly caused by the 15.5% drop in semiconductor exports, which took the biggest share of electronic products during the month.

Aside from electronics, other key exports of the Philippines in October include apparel and clothing accessories, cathodes of refined copper, woodcrafts and furniture, ignition wiring sets, coconut oil, metal components, bananas and sugar.

The United States remained the Philippines' top export destination for the month, buying $660.48 million worth of goods. The figure, however, was lower by 5.3% from the $697.73 million recorded a year earlier.

Japan came in second at $598.86 million, followed by the Netherlands ($477.91 million), Germany ($272.62 million), and Hong Kong ($262.19 million).

Central bank governor Amando Tetangco has earlier said that exports are likely to fall 20% this year. The government had previously projected a 13% to 15% drop in exports for 2009. By Karen Flores, abs-cbnNEWS.com, with a report from Reuters