PHL foreign reserves hits USD 81 B in January ‘17

MANILA—Gross international reserves (GIR) of the Philippines rose to USD 81.04 billion in January 2017, higher than the USD 80.7 billion last December and the USD80.7 billion in January 2016, data released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on Tuesday showed.

In a statement, BSP officer-in-charge Nestor A. Espenilla Jr. traced the higher foreign exchange reserves to inflows from the net foreign currency deposits of the national government (NG) with the central bank.

Other factors include the revaluation adjustments on the central bank’s gold holdings, following the uptick of gold prices in the international market, and the income of central bank’s investments overseas.

”These were partially offset by the payments made by the NG for its maturing foreign exchange obligations and by the BSP’s foreign exchange operations,” Espenilla said.

The BSP official said the current level of foreign reserves was enough to cover 9.2 months worth of goods and payments of services and primary income and equivalent to 5.8 times the country’s short-term foreign liabilities based on original maturity.

During the same period, net international reserves (NIR) or the difference between the central bank’s foreign reserves and the total short-term debt, rose to USD81.04 billion from month-ago’s USD80.69 billion.