Hanoi (VNA) – The Philippine central bank(BSP) on February 21 said the country’s overall balance of payments (BOP) posted a3.1 billion USD surplus in January, a reversal from the 102million USD deficit recorded a year earlier.
The BSP said the BOP January surplus reflects inflowsarising mainly from the national government's net foreign currency depositswith the BSP, which include proceeds from the issuance of the Republic of thePhilippines Global Bonds and net income from the BSP's investments abroad.
According to the bank, the BOP position reflects an increase inthe final gross international reserves (GIR) level to 100.7 billion USD as ofend-January 2023 from 96.1 billion USD as of end-December 2022.
TheBSP added that the latest GIR level represents a more than adequate externalliquidity buffer equivalent to 7.6 months' worth of imports of goods andpayments of services and primary income.
Moreover,the BSP said it is also about 6.2 times the country's short-term external debtbased on original maturity and 4.1 times based on residual maturity./.