MANILA (Xinhua) — The Philippines’ overall balance of payments (BOP) posted a surplus of 3.5 billion U.S. dollars in September, a reversal from the 414 million dollars deficit a year ago, the central bank said Friday.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said the surplus reflected inflows arising mainly from the national government’s net foreign currency deposits with the BSP and net income from the BSP’s investments abroad.
The latest figure brought the year-to-date BOP level to a surplus of 5.1 billion dollars, higher than the 1.7 billion dollars a year earlier.
Based on preliminary data, the BSP said the cumulative BOP surplus reflected mainly narrowing trade in goods deficit alongside continued net inflows from personal remittances, trade in services and net foreign borrowings by the national government. Furthermore, net foreign direct and portfolio investments also contributed to the BOP surplus.
“The BOP position reflects an increase in the final gross international reserves (GIR) level to 112.7 billion dollars as of end-September 2024 from 107.9 billion dollars as of end-August 2024,” the bank said.
It added that the latest GIR level represents a more than adequate external liquidity buffer equivalent to 8.1 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
Moreover, it was also about 4.5 times the country’s short-term external debt based on residual maturity.
