End-April 2014 GIR Stands at $79.6B

Manila—(PHStocks)—Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)—Preliminary data showed that the country’s gross international reserves (GIR) reached $79.61 billion as of end-April 2014, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Officer-in-Charge Nestor A. Espenilla, Jr. has announced. This level was slightly lower by $0.04 billion than the end-March 2014 GIR of $79.65 billion.

The GIR remains ample as it can cover 11 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and income. The GIR level is also equivalent to 6.9 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 5.1 times based on residual maturity.

The slight decline in reserves was due mainly to outflows arising from payments by the National Government (NG) for its maturing foreign exchange obligations and foreign exchange operations of the BSP.  These outflows were partially offset by the foreign currency deposits of the Treasurer of the Philippines (TOP) of loan proceeds from multilateral sources.

Net international reserves (NIR), which refer to the difference between the BSP’s GIR and total short-term liabilities, also decreased to $79.6 billion as of end-April 2014, compared to the end-March 2014 NIR of $79.63 billion.