THE country’s balance of payments in February 2018 posted a lower deficit of $429 million compared with the $436-million gap a year ago, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said Monday.
The regulator said in a statement the outflows in February stemmed mainly from foreign exchange operations of the Bangko Sentral and payments made by the national government on maturing foreign exchange obligations.
“These were partially offset, however, by net foreign currency deposits of the NG and income from the BSP’s investments abroad during the month,” it said.
The February figure brought the BoP position in the first two months of the year to a deficit of $961 million, up from $445 million year-on-year.
“The higher cumulative BoP deficit for the first two months of the year may be attributed partly to the widening merchandise deficit in January 2018 (based on Philippine Statistics Authority data) as well as higher net outflows of foreign portfolio investments (based on BSP-registered transactions) for the first two months of the year,” the Bangko Sentral said.
The BoP position reflected the final gross international reserves level of $80.4 billion as of end-February 2018. At this level, the GIR represents more than ample liquidity buffer and is equivalent to 7.9 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
It is also equivalent to 5.6 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 4.1 times based on residual maturity.
The Bangko Sentral said the current account, one of the main components of the balance of payments, more than doubled to $2.5 billion in 2017 from the $1.2-billion deficit a year ago on the back mainly of the widening trade-in-goods deficit.
Data showed the deficit was the biggest since 1999, when current account shortfall stood at $2.85 billion.
Bangko Sentral assistant governor Francisco Dakila Jr. said in a briefing the higher trade deficit more than offset the increased net receipts in the trade-in-services, and secondary and primary income accounts during the year.