THE Philippines’ gross international reserves (GIR) ballooned to a new record-high of $98 billion as of end-July 2020, data released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed Friday.
The end-July GIR level is $4.531 billion higher than the $93.469-billion as of end-June.
The foreign reserves posted last month is the highest GIR level recorded so far.
“The month-on-month increase in the GIR level reflected inflows mainly from the revaluation gains from the BSP’s gold holdings, National Government’s foreign currency deposits with the BSP as well as BSP’s income from its investments abroad,” the central bank said.
“These inflows were partly offset, however, by the foreign currency withdrawals made by the National Government to pay its foreign currency debt obligations,” it said.
At this level, the GIR represents an “ample external liquidity buffer which can cushion the domestic economy against external shocks.”
The end-July foreign reserves is equivalent to 8.9 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
It is also about 7.5 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 4.9 times based on residual maturity.
Net international reserves (NIR), which refers to the difference between the BSP’s GIR and total short-term liabilities, increased by $4.52 billion to $97.99 billion as of end-July from the end-June level of $93.47 billion.(GMA News)
