Gov’t debt hits P5.75T in Jan

MANILA, Philippines - The National Government’s outstanding debt went up 2.8 percent to P5.75 trillion as of the end of January from P5.593 trillion a year ago, the Bureau of Treasury reported yesterday.

The bulk of the amount or about P3.83 trillion came from the domestic market while the balance of P1.92 trillion came from lenders overseas.

With a population of 92.34 million, every Filipino at the start of 2015 was indebted by P62,290.

Domestic debt, which accounted for 68 percent of the total outstanding obligations, was 5.7 percent higher than the P3.62 trillion recorded in January 2014.  This was tempered by the stronger peso which lowered the peso value of multi-currency domestic debt securities.

On the other hand, foreign-denominated debt declined by 2.5 percent to P1.92 trillion as of end-January this year. Debt denominated in dollars, Japanese yen and euro made up 25 percent, five percent and one percent, respectively, of the total foreign currency debt.

On a month-on-month basis, however, debt sourced from foreign lenders inched up 0.5 percent to P1.91 trillion as of the end of December.  The increase was due to net availments amounting to P33 billion, which was used to meet financing requirements and redeem high coupon bonds.

This was partially offset by the appreciation of the local currency which reduced the peso value of foreign obligations by P26 billion.

“NG’s debt portfolio continues to exhibit resilience against interest rate risk with only 6.78 percent of the total subject to reaffixing owing to the issuance of fixed-rate instruments,” the BTR said.

“Furthermore, the weighted average interest rate indicates that the cost of servicing domestic obligations remains steady at 5.7 percent while external costs are down by 10 basis points to 4.8 percent,” the BTR added.