Forex reserves climb to $82.9 B

MANILA, Philippines - The country’s foreign exchange reserves climbed in July after three straight months of decline on higher gold prices and continued inflow of dollars, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported yesterday.

Citing preliminary data, BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. said the country’s gross international reserves (GIR) rose 2.08 percent to $82.942 billion in July from $81.255 billion in June.

The latest figure was a recovery from a 10-month low in June, but still below the record-high of $85.274 billion recorded in January this year.

“The increase was due to BSP’s foreign exchange operations and some revaluation gains at least for last month,” Tetangco told reporters on the sidelines of a budget briefing in Congress.

According to the central bank, reserves are now good to meet one year of imports of goods and services. They are also equivalent to 8.5 times the country’s short-term debt based on original maturity and 5.8 times on residual maturity.

Broken down, gold holdings posted the highest increase of 7.27 percent after it slumped to a two-year low the previous month. As of July, the value of gold reserves totaled $8.221 billion.

This was followed by foreign investments, where the bulk of the GIR is placed. A total of $71.760 billion were invested offshore, 1.58 percent up from end-June’s $70.645 billion.

Foreign exchange coffers - composed mainly of major currencies such as the dollar, euro and Japanese yen – inched up 0.84 percent to $1.155 billion for the first seven months.

Tetangco said the BSP’s foreign exchange was boosted by “foreign currency deposits from the Treasurer of the Philippines” as well as the “revaluation” of current holdings, primarily to account for stronger foreign currencies.

 â€œThese inflows were partially offset by the payments for maturing foreign exchange obligations of the national government,” he explained.

GIR is also composed of special drawing rights (SDR) – the currency used by the International Monetary Fund – as well as those funds actually lent to the multilateral agency.

Based on official figures, SDR holdings kept steady as of July at $1.261 billion, but the amount with the IMF increased 0.9 percent to $545.01 million.