The gross international reserves rose for the sixth straight month to $83.96 billion in April 2019 from $83.61 billion in March and $79.6 billion a year ago, data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas show.
“The month-on-month increase in the GIR level was due mainly to inflows arising from the BSP’s foreign exchange operations, national government’s net foreign currency deposits and BSP’s income from its investments abroad,” BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno said in a statement Tuesday.
The increase in reserves was tempered partially by payments made by the government for servicing its foreign exchange obligations and the revaluation losses from the BSP’s gold holdings because of the decrease in the price of gold in the international market.
“The end-April 2019 level of GIR serves as an ample external liquidity buffer and is equivalent to 7.4 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income,” Diokno said.
He said it was also equivalent to five times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 3.5 times based on residual maturity.
Net international reserves, which refers to the difference between the BSP’s GIR and total short-term liabilities, also increased by $340 million to $83.94 billion.
Reserves hit an all-time high of $86.139 billion in September 2016.
The Bangko Sentral earlier predicted that the GIR would settle at $77 billion this year, but a strong peso and stable investment inflows kept the reserves above $80 billion in the first four months.