The BoP had been in a state of deficit three years in a row or since 2016.

The overall balance of payments (BoP), or what is left after the country’s foreign-currency expenses are deducted from its foreign-currency earnings, posted another surplus in August, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) d on Thursday.

The BoP at $493 million reflects a 98.79 percent hike from surplus of only $248 million registered a month ago. However, this pales into comparison with the $1.27 billion surplus in August 2018.

Outflows during the month were traced to payments made by the national government (NG) on its foreign exchange (FX) obligations.

NG’s net FX deposits as well as the BSP’s income from its offshore investments partially tempered the outflows in August.

On a cumulative basis, the BoP position stood as a surplus of $5.52 billion, a reversal from the $2.44 billion deficit in the same period a year ago.

“The surplus may be attributed partly to remittance inflows from overseas Filipinos during the first seven months of the year and to net inflows of foreign direct investments and portfolio investments during the first half of the year,” the BSP said.

The announced BoP also mirrors the final gross international reserves (GIR) totaling $86.03 billion as of end-August 2019.

“At this level, the GIR represents a more than ample liquidity buffer and is equivalent to 7.5 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income,” the central bank said.

“It is also equivalent to 5.5 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 4 times based on residual maturity,” it added.

The BoP had been in a state of deficit three years in a row or since 2016. Last year when the balance stood as a shortfall totaling $2.306 billion for instance, the balance was in surplus only in August at $1.272 billion, then again in November at $847 million and finally in December when this stood at $2.442 billion.