Dollar buffer at 20-month high

The country’s foreign currency buffer, or the gross international reserves (GIR), opened the year strong as this further ramped up more than a percent in January.

This was learned from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Nestor Espenilla Jr. who said on Thursday the foreign currency reserves stood at $82.13 billion, representing a 20-month high from May 2017 when this stood at only $82.17 billion.

This improvement in gold reserves arose from the increase in the price of gold in the international market.

According to Espenilla, the GIR figure was slightly higher than the $79.19 billion reported in December 2018.

Preliminary data from the BSP show the increase was fueled primarily by the inflows arising from the national government’s (NG) foreign currency deposits and the central bank’s foreign exchange operations.

“However, the increase in reserves was partially tempered by payments made by the NG for servicing its foreign exchange obligations,” the BSP said.

Also, the country’s gold holdings in January grew to $8.40 billion compared to only $8.15 billion in December 2018.

This improvement in gold reserves arose from the increase in the price of gold in the international market.

According to the central bank, the reported January GIR level remains an ample external liquidity buffer equivalent to 7.2 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.

Also, the amount translates to 6.2 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 4.2 times based on residual maturity.

The difference between the BSP’s GIR and total short-term liabilities or the net international reserves, similarly gained by $2.94 billion to $82.13 billion as of end-January 2019 from the end-December 2018 level of $79.19 billion.