An economist on Monday revealed that the Philippine peso continued to appreciate against the dollar for the third consecutive trading day on Monday, marking a fresh 21-month high as the local currency gained 24 centavos to close at P50.5:$1.
The recorded gain was stronger than Thursday’s finish of P50.74:$1 and was regarded as the strongest performance of the peso in over 21 months, since it closed at P50.49:$1 on 16 January 2018.
Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) chief economist Michael Ricafort said in a statement that the peso’s strength was driven by several factors – including the directive of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Benjamin Diokno for the discontinuation of more cuts in local policy rates and in banks’ RRR for the rest of 2019.
“Peso also stronger after accumulated OFW remittances and conversion to pesos used for spending during the long holiday weekend and also for tuition payments and upcoming Christmas-related spending especially up to December,” said Ricafort.
Aside from this, Ricafort noted that the peso strengthened ahead of the release of local economic data later this week.
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“Peso also stronger in anticipation of improved upcoming economic data such as for inflation data due tomorrow that could still ease from the new three-year low of 0.9 percent,” he added.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) is scheduled to release September inflation figures on Tuesday, 5 November and it will also release agriculture and trade data on Wednesday and the third-quarter economic growth figures on Thursday.
