The country’s gross international reserves rose to $107.98 billion at the end of February 2022 from $107.69 billion in January, driven by the higher value of gold holdings of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and its income from investments overseas.
BSP said in a statement Tuesday the latest reserves level represents a more than adequate external liquidity buffer equivalent to 10.2 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
They are also about 8.4 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 5.8 times based on residual maturity.
“The month-on-month increase in the GIR level reflected mainly the upward adjustment in the value of the BSP’s gold holdings due to the increase in the price of gold in the international market and the BSP’s net income from its investments abroad,” it 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) rose $0.29 billion to $107.97 billion.