Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — On Wednesday (October 7), the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Officer-in-Charge Diwa Guinigundo revealed that the country’s gross international reserves (GIR), based on preliminary data, inched up to $80.31 billion during the end of September, from $80.26 billion logged during the end of the previous month.
Such funds consist of assets used by the central bank for the payment of liabilities and other foreign obligations.
The BSP attributed the rise to its foreign exchange operations, and income from investments abroad and from the national government’s (NG’s) net foreign currency deposits.
“These foreign exchange inflows were partially offset by payments made by the NG for its maturing foreign exchange obligations and revaluation adjustments on the BSP’s gold holdings and foreign currency-denominated reserves,” the central bank said in a statement.
The BSP noted that end-September’s GIR level can cover 10.3 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and income. It is also equivalent to 6.1 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 4.4 times based on residual maturity.
Net international reserves, which exclude the BSP’s short-term liabilities, inched up by $0.06 billion to $80.31 billion during the same period, compared to the previous month’s $80.25 billion.
