Philippines' gross international reserves rise to 104.51 bln USD
Source: Xinhua | 2020-12-16
The Philippines' gross international reserves (GIR) level rose to 104.51 billion U.S. dollars as of end-November 2020 from the end-October 2020 level of 103.80 billion U.S. dollars, the Philippine central bank said on Tuesday.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said the latest GIR level represents an adequate external liquidity buffer, which can help cushion the domestic economy against external shocks.
"This buffer is equivalent to 11.2 months' worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income," the BSP said in a statement, adding it is also about 9.3 times the country's short-term external debt based on original maturity and 5.3 times based on residual maturity.
The BSP said the month-on-month increase in the GIR level reflected inflows mainly from its foreign exchange operations and income from its investments abroad.
However, the BSP said these inflows were partly offset by the foreign currency withdrawals the national government made to pay its foreign currency debt obligations and revaluation losses from the BSP's gold holdings resulting from the decrease in the price of gold in the international market.
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