The Philippines posted a balance of payments surplus of $184 million in April, lower than $380 million a year ago, data from Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas show.
“The BoP surplus for April could be traced mainly to FX [foreign exchange] deposits of the national government and income from BSP operations,” Bangko Sentral Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said in a text message.
“This helped to further reduce the cumulative deficit for the year. With the good GDP release today and continued buoyancy in the domestic financial markets, we expect a reversal in the overall BoP cumulative position to a surplus going forward,” Tetangco said.
The April data was also lower than the $854-million surplus in March this year.
BoP summarizes the country’s economic transactions with the rest of the world, with a surplus indicating that foreign exchange inflows exceed payments.
Persistent surpluses help build up the gross international reserves, an ample supply of which stabilizes the currency and inflation rates.
