PHL's foreign reserves decline to USD82.7B in November 2016By Joann Santiago
MANILA, Dec. 7 (PNA) - - The Philippines’ foreign reserves fell to USD82.73 billion by end-November 2016, its lowest since last February.
Data released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed that the preliminary gross international reserves (GIR) level to date is the lowest after the USD81.88 billion last February and a decline from last October’s USD85.11 billion.
The central bank breached its GIR target of USD82.7 billion this year last March when the foreign reserves amounted to USD 82.98 billion.
BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr., in a statement, attributed the drop in the foreign reserves to the national government’s payments of its maturing foreign debt, the impact of the central bank’s foreign exchange operations and revaluation of the central bank’s gold holdings.
Central bank data show that value of the BSP’s gold holdings as of last November amounted to USD7.4 billion, lower than the previous month’s USD8.1 billion.
Tetangco said these outflows were countered by the national government’s net foreign currency deposits and the central bank’s income from investments abroad.
He said the current foreign exchange reserves were enough to cover 9.6 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and income and equivalent to 5.9 times the country’s short-term foreign debt based on original maturity.
During the same period, net international reserves (NIR), which is the difference between the GIR and total short-term debt, amounted to USD82.72 billion, lower than the previous month’s USD85.09 billion, central bank data show. (PNA)
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