November GIR hits all-time high

The country’s foreign currency reserves or gross international reserves (GIR) expanded yet again, bringing such to all-time high of $86.39 billion as of end-November 2019, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported on Friday.

“Preliminary data show that the country’s (GIR) rose by $0.56 billion to $86.39 billion as of end-November 2019 from $85.83 billion as of end-October 2019,” the BSP said.

According to the central bank, this development could be traced from both the national government’s foreign currency deposits and the BSP’s investments abroad.

Also, the BSP noted that the country’s dollar reserves remain to be an ample external liquidity buffer and equates to 7.5 months’ worth of imports of goods and services and payment of primary income.

Likewise, the latest GIR number translates to 5.6 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 4.1 times based on residual maturity.

Meanwhile, the central bank’s gold holdings stood at $8.01 billion, registering the same figure from October’s.

The net international reserves, which nets out short-term debt, was better by $0.56 billion to $86.38 billion as of end-November 2019 from the end-November 2018 level of $85.82 billion.

To recall, the BSP pegged the GIR to hit $83 billion this year, the latest of which, already surpassing the target.