The Philippines’ overall balance of payments position slipped into a deficit of $895 million in February, higher than the $157 million recorded in the same month a year ago.
The deficit resulted from the government’s net foreign currency withdrawals from its previous deposits with the central bank to pay for its foreign currency debt obligations and expenditures.
For the first two months of the year, however, the BOP remained at a surplus, registering $2.185 billion as of end-February based on data released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. The figure represents an improvement from last year’s same period deficit of $259 million.
The BOP is a reflection of a country’s economic transactions of a country with the rest of the world over a specified period.
The cumulative BOP surplus was boosted by inflows from the government’s $3 billion global bond issuance in January, personal remittances totaling $3.07 billion, foreign portfolio investments of $292 million.
While the gross international reserves $98.2 billion as of end-February were still lower than the $99.31 billion initially reported on March 7, the BSP considered it to be a “more than adequate external liquidity buffer.” It is equivalent to 7.4 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
