The Philippine’s Central Bank, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) (Photo: elegal.ph) Hanoi (VNA) – The Philippine central bank (BSP) on February 21 said the country’s overall balance of payments (BOP) posted a 3.1 billion USD surplus in January, a reversal from the 102 million USD deficit recorded a year earlier.
The BSP said the BOP January surplus reflects inflows arising mainly from the national government's net foreign currency deposits with the BSP, which include proceeds from the issuance of the Republic of the Philippines Global Bonds and net income from the BSP's investments abroad.
According to the bank, the BOP position reflects an increase in the final gross international reserves (GIR) level to 100.7 billion USD as of end-January 2023 from 96.1 billion USD as of end-December 2022.
The BSP added that the latest GIR level represents a more than adequate external liquidity buffer equivalent to 7.6 months' worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
Moreover, the BSP said it is also about 6.2 times the country's short-term external debt based on original maturity and 4.1 times based on residual maturity./.
