People wear mask to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the capital city of Manila, the Philippines. (Photo: Xinhua)Hanoi (VNA) – The Philippines has so far secured a total of 8.83 billion USD in borrowings, loans and grant assistance for the government's COVID-19 response efforts from its development partners and the commercial markets, China’s Xinhua News Agency reported.
The Philippine Department of Finance (DOF) said on September 6 that of the total amount, 5.98 billion USD is budget support financing from the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the French Development Agency and the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
A total of 2.35 billion USD was sourced from the government's latest global bond offering that fetched its lowest ever coupon in the USD market, the DOF added.
The DOF said the remaining 496.36 million USD is from grant and loan financing from the Philippines' development partners for various COVID-19 specific projects.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said that total government borrowings for 2020 and 2021 are projected to reach 3 trillion pesos (roughly 61.7 billion USD) to support priority expenditures necessary for the country's swift recovery from the COVID-19 crisis and public investments in infrastructure and social services.
Dominguez added that borrowings are expected to settle at 2.3 trillion pesos (roughly 47.3 billion USD) in 2022, with funding in favor of domestic sources.
He said the debt-to-GDP ratio is projected to settle at 54 percent this year, 58 percent in 2021, and 60 percent in 2022.
Dominguez added that these projections are still lower when compared to the country's all-time high debt level of 71.6 percent of GDP in 2004. Last year, the debt-to-GDP ratio fell to a historic low at 39.6 percent.
COVID-19-triggered lockdowns severely curtailed the country’s economic activities and muted its revenue-generation capacity, with total revenue collection reaching only 1.7 trillion pesos (roughly 35 billion USD) in the first seven months of 2020, or 7 percent lower than the revenue take in the same period last year, with 85 percent of the revenues coming from tax collections./.
VNA
