BSP sees record forex reserves

MANILA, Philippines - The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) sees the country’s foreign reserves hitting a new record high of $44.5 billion to $45 billion this year with the disbursement of additional loans from multilateral lending agencies.

BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. said in an interview with reporters that the new gross international reserves (GIR) forecast was higher than the latest revised projected range of between $43 billion and $44 billion.

Tetangco pointed out that the disbursement of loans from international lenders would beef up the country’s GIR.

“There are some loans that are expected,” he said.

The GIR is the sum of all foreign exchange flowing into the country and the balance of payments position is the remaining balance net of all external payments for debt servicing and imports.

Latest data from the central bank showed that the GIR hit a new record high of $43.73 billion in end-November or about $500 million higher than the $43.2 billion registered in end-October.

The GIR last month was also $6.9 billion higher than the level of $36.83 billion booked in November last year.

The current reserves could cover 8.1 months of imports of goods and payments of services and income. It is also equivalent to 9.2 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and four times based on residual maturity falling due in the next 12 months.

The increase was attributed to the higher borrowings by the National Government as well as the increasing value of the central bank’s gold holdings.

“The continued build-up in the GIR level was due mainly to revaluation gains on the BSP’s gold holdings on account of the sustained rise in the price of gold in the international market, foreign currency deposit by the National Government of its loan proceeds, as well as income from BSP’s investments abroad,” Tetangco said.

The National Government tapped the international capital market for the third time last month for much needed funds successfully raising $1 billion. This brought the country’s total foreign commercial borrowings to $3.25 billion this year.

Data showed that the central bank’s foreign investments inched up by $201 million $36.37 billion in November from $36.19 billion in October while its gold holdings rose by $358 million to $5.633 billion from $5.27 billion.

On the other hand, the general allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) which was made available by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to its members including the Philippines was unchanged at $1.153 billion as of end November.

The increase in GIR, was partially offset by outflows arising from the payment of maturing foreign exchange obligations by the national government and the central bank.

The outflows included foreign currency withdrawals by authorized agent banks.