The country’s external debt of $97.05 billion as of end-first quarter remains at a manageable level, the Department of Finance said over the weekend.
Data showed that the external debt stock in the first quarter slightly went down by 1.5 percent from its end-2020 level. This was equivalent to 26.7 percent of the gross domestic product, of which 15.6 percentage points is contributed by the public sector and 11.1 percentage points by the private sector.
The recent build-up in external debt was driven by the government’s resource mobilization against the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In 2020, the public sector’s external debt increased by 35.8 percent but that of the private sector’s external debt actually declined by 1.1 percent. In the first quarter of 2021, public sector debt declined by 2.4 percent; the private sector debt likewise declined by 0.2 percent,” the agency said.
“At 26.7 percent of GDP, the country’s external debt is at manageable level. This ratio is about a half of that in 2005, at 57.3 percent, the first comparable year that uses the IMF’s BPM6 methodology in calculating balance-of-payments statistics,” the DOF said.