The country’s gross international reserve fell by $280 million to $112.43 billion in October from $112.71 billion the previous month, from the government’s withdrawals to settle maturing foreign obligations, data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed.
International reserves, also known as GIR, are the BSP’s foreign assets, which are mostly invested in foreign-issued securities, monetary gold, and foreign exchange.
“The month-on-month decrease in the GIR level reflected mainly the national government’s net foreign currency withdrawals from its deposits with the BSP to settle its foreign currency debt obligations and pay for its various expenditures,” the BSP said.
It added that the net international reserves, or the difference between the BSP’s reserve assets (GIR) and reserve liabilities (short-term foreign debt and credit and loans from the International Monetary Fund), slightly declined to $112.39 billion as of October from the end-September level of $112.67 billion.
The BSP, however, noted that the latest GIR level represents a more-than-adequate external liquidity buffer equivalent to 8.1 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
“Moreover, it is also about 4.5 times the country’s short-term external debt based on residual maturity,” it added.
By convention, the GIR is considered adequate if it can finance at least three months’ worth of the country’s imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
