Philippine gross international reserves (GIR) rose to 43.2 billion U.S. dollars in October thanks to proceeds from the government's recent bond sales and loans provided by the Asian Development Bank.
The Philippine central bank reported Friday that October's foreign exchange reserve is 700 million U.S. dollars higher than September's GIR.
Apart from the ADB loans and bond sales, the revaluation gains on the central bank's gold holdings, owing to higher prices of gold in the world market; and income from the central bank's investments abroad also boosted the GIR in October.
These inflows were partly offset by the government's payment of maturing foreign exchange obligations and foreign currency withdrawals by
authorized agent banks.
The October GIR level can cover 8 months of imports of goods and payments of services and income. It was also equivalent to 9.1 times the
country's short-term external debt based on original maturity and 4.0 times based on residual maturity.
The level of net international reserves (NIR), which includes revaluation of reserve assets and reserve-related liabilities, increased to 43.1 billion U.S. dollars in October, higher by 1.2 billion U.S. dollars from the previous month's level.
NIR refers to the difference between the GIR and total short- term liabilities.