The Philippines’ gross international reserves (GIR) fell to $102.7 billion as of end-February 2024 from $103.3 billion in January, based on preliminary data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
GIR is a measure of the country’s ability to settle import payments and service foreign debt.
The BSP said in a statement the country’s latest GIR represented a more than adequate external liquidity buffer equivalent to 7.7 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
It was also about six times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 3.9 times based on residual maturity.
“The month-on-month decrease in the GIR level reflected mainly the national government’s (NG) payments of its foreign currency debt obligations,” the BSP said.
The net international reserves, which refers to the difference between the BSP’s reserve assets and reserve liabilities (short-term foreign debt and credit and loans from the International Monetary Fund), slightly decreased to $102.66 billion as of end-February from $102.68 billion in the previous month.