The country’s gross international reserves rebounded to $94.1 billion as of end-October from $93 billion in September to end a seven-month slump, data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas show.
Reserves were hovering at $107 billion in the first quarter before the figure began to decline in the second and third quarters as the BSP intervened in the foreign exchange market to prevent the rapid depreciation of the peso against the US dollar. The peso lost 15 percent of its value since the start of the year.
The BSP said the recovery of the GIR in October “reflected mainly the national government’s net foreign currency deposits with the BSP, which include proceeds from its issuance of ROP Global Bonds and upward valuation adjustments in foreign currency-denominated reserves [or non-gold reserves].”
It said the latest GIR level still represented a more than adequate external liquidity buffer equivalent to 7.5 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
It was also about 6.7 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 4.0 times based on residual maturity.
Data showed that net international reserves, which refer 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) increased by $1.0 billion to $94.0 billion as of end-October 2022 from the end-September 2022 level of $93.0 billion.
The GIR reached a record $110.11 billion in December 2020. The BSP expects GIR to settle at $99 billion by the end of the year.