The country’s transactions against the rest of the world remained in a state of surplus in September, but proved lower compared to the previous month, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said on Monday.
The balance of payments (BOP) position—essentially a broad measure of the country’s economic dealings with the rest of the world—registered a surplus of $98 million during the month.
While the BOP position did not revert to a deficit but has remained in surplus, which means that the Philippines generated far more foreign currency earnings than it spent, the level of surplus has, in fact, trended lower since August this year.
In comparison, the September BOP surplus was $24 million lower than surplus totaling $114 million in August.
This was also $367 million lower than the surplus reported in September last year when this totaled $465 million.
As a result, the surplus reported for the month was not enough to lift the continued shortfall in the BOP position as the nine-month deficit stood wide at $3.4 billion.
The imbalance represents a turnaround from the year-ago surplus when the nine-month excess aggregated $3.8 billion.
The monetary authorities project the BOP to remain in surplus of at least $1.1 billion at the end of the year.
This means that for the country to reach the government’s assumption, it must at least incur a surplus of $1.5 billion consistently for the final three months of the year even as the country’s external sector has to contend with market volatilities around the world.
The last time the Philippines posted a surplus in the billion-dollar range was in July last year, when the surplus aggregated $1.1 billion.
Monetary officials earlier bared a plan to review the assumed BOP numbers this year as part of the biannual assessment of the country’s external sector.
BSP Deputy Governor for the Monetary Stability Sector Diwa C. Guinigundo said the central bank will submit to the Development Budget Coordination Committee the new assumed numbers for approval.