The Philippines’ gross international reserves (GIR) surged to a record high of $112 billion at the end of September 2024, surpassing the $107.9 billion logged at the end of August 2024, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said Monday.
It also exceeded the previous record of $110.12 billion registered in December 2020 at the height of the pandemic.
The BSP said the latest GIR level represented a more than adequate external liquidity buffer equivalent to 8.1 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
“By convention, GIR is viewed to be adequate if it can finance at least three-months’ worth of the country’s imports of goods and payments of services and primary income,” the BSP said.
It was also about 6.3 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 4.4 times based on residual maturity.
Short-term debt based on residual maturity refers to outstanding external debt with original maturity of one year or less, plus principal payments on medium- and long-term loans of the public and private sectors falling due within the next 12 months.
The level of GIR is considered adequate, if it provides at least 100-percent cover for the payment of the country’s foreign liabilities, public and private, falling due within the immediate twelve-month period, the BSP said.
The month-on-month increase in the GIR level reflected mainly the national government’s (NG) net foreign currency deposits with the BSP, which included proceeds from the NG issuance of ROP global bonds, upward valuation adjustments in the BSP’s gold holdings on increased prices of gold in the international market, and net income from the BSP’s investments abroad.
The BSP’s reserve assets consist of foreign investments, gold, foreign exchange, reserve position in the IMF and special drawing rights.
The BSP’s foreign investments reached $94.5 billion as of end-September, while its gold holdings amounted to $10.9 million.
Meanwhile, the net international reserves, which refer to the difference between the BSP’s reserve assets (GIR) and reserve liabilities (short-term foreign debt and credit and loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF)), increased by $4.2 billion to $112 billion as of end-September 2024 from the end-August 2024 level of $107.8 billion.
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