The gross international reserves (GIR) level, an indication of capacity to pay for external trade and debt obligations, again fell below $100 billion.
According to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), citing preliminary data, the GIR settled at $99.3 billion at end-February from end-January level of $100.7 billion.
The GIR stood lower than $100 billion from July to December last year but climbed back up in January this year on account of the foreign currency deposits of the national government at the central bank generated from its bond sales.
The GIR level represents a more than adequate external liquidity buffer equivalent to 7.5 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
It is also about 6.1 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 4.1 times based on residual maturity.
The month-on-month decrease in the GIR level reflected mainly the national government’s net foreign currency withdrawals from its deposits with the BSP to settle its foreign currency debt obligations and pay for its various expenditures, and downward adjustments in the value of the BSP’s gold holdings due to the decrease in the price of gold in the international market.
Similarly, the net international reserves, which refers to the difference between the BSP’s reserve assets and reserve liabilities (short-term foreign debt and credit and loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF)), decreased by $1.3 billion to $99.3 billion as of end-February 2023 from the end-January 2023 level of $100.6 billion.
