The country’s gross international reserves climbed to $109.08 billion as of end-February from $108.67 billion in January, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin Diokno said Thursday.
Diokno said in a statement the increase in the reserves level reflected inflows from the BSP’s foreign exchange operations and income from investments abroad.
“These inflows were partly offset, however, by the revaluation adjustments from the BSP’s gold holdings due to the decrease in the price of gold in the international market and foreign currency withdrawals of the national government from its deposits in the BSP to pay its foreign currency debt obligations,” Diokno said.
He said the February GIR represented an adequate external liquidity buffer, which could help cushion the domestic economy against external shocks. This buffer was equivalent to 11.7 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
It was also about 9.5 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 5.4 times based on residual maturity.
The GIR hit a record-high of $110.12 billion in December 2020.