MANILA – The national government’s outstanding debt rose to another record-high at P7.160 trillion during the first nine months of the year, swelling on the back of higher local and foreign borrowings.
Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) data released showed the government’s outstanding debt rose by 11.1 percent from P6.444 trillion as of end September 2017.
Month-on-month, the total obligations increased by 0.80 percent from P7.104 trillion as of end-August 2018.
Domestic debt amounted to P4.587 trillion, up 9.5 percent from P4.188 trillion year-on-year. Foreign debt stood at P2.572 trillion, up 14 percent from P2.255 trillion.
For the month, the increase in domestic debt was to the issuance of government securities amounting to P14.54 billion and the depreciation of the peso that increased the value of onshore dollar bonds by P310 million,” the Treasury bureau said.
“The increment in external debt was due to net availments of foreign loans amounting to P22.52 billion and the P29.68-billion impact of local currency depreciation against the US dollar,” it said.
The peso depreciated from P53.475 as of end-August to 54.102 as of end-September this year.
Foreign debt accounted for 35.92 percent of the total outstanding liabilities as of end-September, while domestic borrowings contributed the lion’s share of 64.08 percent.
Budget secretary Benjamin Diokno earlier said that “the rule of thumb is that a country with a debt-to-GDP [gross domestic product] ratio below 60 percent is fiscally sound … The Philippines is comfortably below that …”
As of end 2017, the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio was 42 percent and the Department of Budget and Management expected the ratio to go down to 39 percent in 2022.
As percent of GDP, the Philippines has an external debt ratio of 20.4 percent as of June 2018, lower than those of Malaysia (74 percent), Vietnam (44.8 percent), Indonesia (37.5 percent) and Thailand (31.7 percent), but slightly higher than those of India (17.4 percent) and China (14.5 percent). (GMA News)
