THE balance of payments position in March posted a lower deficit of $266 million, down from a $550-million gap a year ago, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said Friday.
Data showed the March deficit was also lower than the $429-million gap a month ago.
“Outflows in March 2018 stemmed mainly from foreign exchange operations of the BSP and payments made by the national government for its maturing foreign exchange obligations,” Bangko Sentral said.
“These were partially offset, however, by net foreign currency deposits of the national government and income from the BSP’s investments abroad during the month,” it said.
The cumulative BoP position in the first three months of 2018 posted a higher deficit of $1.227 billion compared with the gap of $994 million in the comparable period in 2017.
“The higher cumulative BoP deficit for the first quarter of the year may be attributed partly to the widening merchandise deficit [based on Philippine Statistics Authority data] for the first two months of the year,” Bangko Sentral said.
“We continue to expect the overall BoP position for the year to be very manageable,” it said.
The regulator said the BoP position was consistent with the reserves level of $80.511 billion as of end-March 2018. It said the GIR at this level represented more than ample liquidity buffer and was equivalent to 7.9 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
The reserves were also equivalent to 5.6 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 4.1 times based on residual maturity.
The central bank also said the overall BoP position for 2016 was revised from a deficit of $420 million (-0.1 percent of the gross domestic product) to $1.038 billion (-0.3 percent of GDP). The revision reflects post-audit adjustments involving the reclassification of renminbi-denominated assets from non-reserve eligible assets to reserve assets.
Earlier, Bangko Sentral said the deficit in the current account, one of the main components of the balance of payments, more than doubled to $2.5 billion in 2017 from the $1.2-billion gap a year ago on the back mainly of the widening trade-in-goods deficit.