MANILA – The country's gross international reserves (GIR) settled at USD102.7 billion as of end-February, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said.
In a statement released late Thursday, the BSP said that preliminary data showed that the GIR level during the month was lower than end-January's USD103.3 billion.
The BSP’s reserve assets consist of foreign investments, gold, foreign exchange, reserve position in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and special drawing rights.
"The month-on-month decrease in the GIR level reflected mainly the National Government’s (NG) payments of its foreign currency debt obligations," the central bank said.
The BSP noted that the net international reserves, which refers to the difference between the central bank’s reserve assets (GIR) and reserve liabilities (short-term foreign debt and credit and loans from the IMF), also slightly decreased to USD102.66 billion from the end-January level of USD102.68 billion.
"The latest GIR level represents a more-than-adequate external liquidity buffer equivalent to 7.7 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income," the BSP said.
It is also about six times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 3.9 times based on residual maturity.
By convention, the GIR is viewed to be adequate if it can finance at least three months' worth of the country's imports of goods and payments of services and primary income. (PNA)
