The country’s gross international reserves fell for the third straight month in March to $104.82 billion from an all-time high of $110.117 billion in December 2020, pulled down by the government’s debt servicing, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said Friday.
The March GIR dropped from $105.16 billion in February 2021, reflecting outflows from the net withdrawal in the national government’s foreign currency deposits with the BSP, which were largely used for debt servicing.
The reserves were also affected by the downward adjustment in the value of BSP’s gold holdings amid the decrease in the price of gold in the international market, the BSP said in a statement.
“These outflows were partly offset, however, by the BSP’s income from its investments abroad,” it said.
Data showed that from $11.605-billion value of gold holdings in December, it went down to $9.113 billion in March this year.
The BSP said despite the month-on-month decrease, the latest GIR level was more than adequate external liquidity buffer, which could help cushion the domestic economy against external shocks.
It said this buffer was equivalent to 12 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
The amount was also about 7.5 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 5.3 times based on residual maturity.
Net international reserves, which refer to the difference between the BSP’s GIR and total short-term liabilities, also fell by $340 million to $104.81billion as of end-March from $105.15 billion in February.
The BSP earlier projected the GIR level to reach $114 billion by end-2021 and increase further to $117 billion in 2022.
