The Department of Finance said secured $4.55 billion in newly-contracted foreign loans from multilateral lenders and the commercial markets as of mid-May to boost the government’s ongoing efforts to suppress the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic and provide relief to the most affected sectors.
The budgetary support financing for the COVID-19 emergency came from loans extended by the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, and the government’s issue of US dollar-denominated global bonds last month, the DOF said.
It said of the amount, $1.7 billion came from the ADB, $500 million from the World Bank and another $2.35 billion from the dual-tranche issuance of the Philippines’ global bonds, which fetched coupon rates of 2.45 percent for the 10-year and 2.95 percent for the 25-year, the lowest ever for a Philippine dollar bond in both tenors.
The World Bank also accelerated its disbursement of the $200-million additional financing for the ongoing Social Welfare Development and Reform Project II to the Philippines, bringing the total amount for budgetary support financing sourced by the government from foreign loans for the COVID-19 response to $4.75 billion.