THE Philippines’ gross international reserves (GIR) settled at USD103.4 billion as of the end of April this year, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
In a statement released late Tuesday, the BSP said the GIR last month was slightly lower than the end-March GIR level of USD104.1 billion.
“The month-on-month decrease in the GIR level reflected mainly the National Government’s (NG) net foreign currency withdrawals from its deposits with the BSP to settle its foreign currency debt obligations and pay for its various expenditures,” the central bank said.
However, the latest GIR level represents a more than adequate external liquidity buffer equivalent to 7.7 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income, the BSP said.
It is also about 5.9 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 3.6 times based on residual maturity.
By standard, GIR is viewed to be adequate if it can finance at least three months’ worth of the country’s imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation chief economist Michael Ricafort said despite the month-on-month decrease in GIR, the amount is still way above the minimum international threshold of three to four months’ worth of imports of goods.
“[The GIR level] could still provide (a) greater buffer on the peso exchange rate versus any speculative attacks,” Ricafort said.
“For the coming months, the country’s GIR could still be supported by the continued growth in the country’s structural inflows from OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) remittances, BPO (business process outsourcing) revenues, exports, relatively fast recovery in foreign tourism revenues, as well as continued foreign investment coming from among pre-pandemic highs,” he added. (PNA)
