The country’s gross international reserves (GIR), which act as buffer against global financial stresses, inched up in September, driven higher by proceeds from the central bank’s foreign-exchange operations and income from its overseas investments.
In a report on Wednesday, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said the GIR aggregated $80.31 billion.
This represented a $50-million increase from GIR data in August totaling only $80.26 billion.
The September GIR was also $750 million higher than the year -ago GIR of only $79.56 billion.
This also helped snap the downtrend in foreign-currency reserve holdings noted the past two months in a series.
The central bank attributed the higher GIR “mainly to the BSP’s foreign-exchange operations and its income from investments abroad, as well as the national government’s net foreign-currency deposits.”
The GIR could have been higher were it not partially offset by payments made by the national government for maturing foreign-exchange obligations and revaluation adjustments on the BSP’s gold holdings and foreign currency-denominated reserves.
The central bank manages the GIR as buffer against maturing foreign obligations. It also serves as a cushion against external sector imbalances and pressure. Gold reserves, a basket of currencies known as special drawing rights, foreign investments and foreign-exchange reserves make up any country’s foreign-currency reserves.
Reserve levels tell a country’s capacity to meet trade commitments or maturing foreign-currency obligations.
Data from the central bank show the BSP’s gold holdings aggregated $7.015 billion in September, down from $7.15 billion the previous month.
BSP said the GIR should be sufficient to finance 10.3 months worth of imports of goods and payments of services and income. It is also equivalent to 6.1 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity, or 4.4 times based on residual maturity.