The balance of payments (BOP), essentially what is left after deducting the country’s foreign currency expenses against earnings, stood as a surplus of $612 million in December 2022, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said on Thursday.
This was 38.2 percent lower than the year-ago surplus totaling $991 million and a reflection of the foreign currency inflows resulting from the net foreign exchange operations and net income from the BSP’s investments abroad.
As a result, the BOP surplus in December reduced the full year 2022 BOP deficit to only $7.3 billion from a deficit of $7.9 billion in the first 11 months last year.
Nonetheless, the full-year 2022 BOP deficit was a reversal from the $1.3 billion surplus recorded in 2021.
Based on preliminary data, the cumulative BOP deficit was due to the widening trade in goods deficit as goods imports continued to surpass goods exports on the back of the increase in international commodity prices and resumption in domestic economic activities.
The gross international reserves (GIR) level increased to $96.1 billion as of end-December 2022 from $95.1 billion a month earlier.
The GIR represents a more than adequate external liquidity buffer equivalent to 7.3 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
This was also 5.9 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 3.9 times based on residual maturity.
