THE country’s Gross International Reserves (GIR) reached over $100 billion as of the end of April 2023, but was slightly lower than its level the previous month and the same period last year, based on preliminary data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
The data showed the country’s GIR amounted to $101.511 billion as of April 2023. This is lower than the $101.55 billion posted at the end of March 2023 and the $105.4 billion in April 2022.
The BSP’s reserve assets consist of foreign investments, gold, foreign exchange, reserve position in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and special drawing rights.
“The lower GIR level in April reflected mainly the National Government’s [NG] payments of its foreign currency debt obligations,” the BSP said in a statement sent over the weekend.
The BSP said the latest GIR level represents a more-than-adequate external liquidity buffer equivalent to 7.6 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,” BSP said.
Moreover, it is also about 5.9 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 4.1 times based on residual maturity.
BSP said 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 lower GIR level in April
reflected mainly the National Government’s (NG) payments of its foreign currency debt obligations. The level of GIR, as of a particular period, BSP said, 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 12-month period.
Further, the net international reserves, which refers to the difference between the BSP’s reserve assets (GIR) and reserve liabilities or short-term foreign debt and credit and loans from the IMF, decreased by $0.04 billion to $101.47 billion as of end-April 2023 from the end-March 2023 level of $101.51 billion.