The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported a decrease in the Philippines foreign debt service burden (DSB) in the first four months of 2024.
DSB refers to the total amount of money required to pay the principal and interest on outstanding debt in a particular period.
Data show that the country’s DSB amounted to $4.64 billion from January to April, down from $5.785 billion in the same period of 2023.
The total principal payments in the first four months totaled $2.115 billion, lower than the $3.613 billion recorded in the same period last year.
Interest payments, however, saw a slight increase to $2.525 billion from $2.172 billion a year ago.
The BSP said that as a percentage of exports of goods and receipts from services and primary income for January to April, the DSB reached 9.4 percent, down from 13.1 percent a year earlier.
The DSB, measured against the current account receipts, was 9.0 percent in January-April period, also lower compared to 12.4 percent in the same period of 2023.
The DSB to gross national income (GNI) ratio also improved to 2.6 percent in the first four months of 2024 from 3.9 percent in the same period last year.
The DSB to GDP ratio followed the same trend, coming in at 3.0 percent this year from 4.3 percent in the same period of 2023.
While the DSB showed improvement, external debt to GDP ratio for January-April 2024 reached 29 percent, a slight increase from 28.9 percent in the same period of 2023.
The public and private external debt ratios were 17.8 percent and 11.2 percent, respectively, in the four-month period.
These figures were slightly higher than 18.3 percent and 10.6 percent for public and private external debt, respectively, in the same period of 2023.
Meanwhile, the gross international reserves to debt service burden ratio stood at 754.4 percent in January-April 2024, a decrease from 802.8 percent in the same period of 2023.
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