The country’s gross international reserves declined to a seven-month low of $80.786 billion in July, down by $0.53 billion from $81.321 billion in June, after the government settled some of its maturing foreign exchange obligations, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said Monday.
Bangko Sentral Governor Nestor Espenilla Jr. said the decline in reserves was also due to the outflows arising from the regulator’s foreign exchange operations.
“These were partially offset by revaluation adjustments on the BSP’s gold holdings resulting from the increase in the price of gold in the international market and net foreign currency deposits by the national government as well as BSP’s income from its investments abroad,” Espenilla said.
“This could adequately cover 8.6 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income. It is also equivalent to 5.5 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 3.7 times based on residual maturity,” he said.
Reserves hit an all-time high of $86.139 billion in September 2016. This year, Bangko Sentral expects reserves to settle at $80.5 billion.