The national government reported total gross borrowings of P156.526 billion for January to February 2018, with loans from offshore entities outpacing those from local lenders, data from the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) showed.
The BTr said total borrowings during the two-month period declined 8.6 percent compared to the P171.358 billion made during the same period in 2017.
Broken down, gross borrowings from foreign agencies amounted to P130.317 billion, which saw an increase of 8 percent from P120.606 billion for the same period in 2017.
Domestic gross borrowings reached P26.212 billion, down 48.3 percent from P50.752 billion recorded during the two-month period last year.
For February the government’s total gross borrowings reached P108.870 billion, down 17.6 percent from P132.231 billion in February 2017.
Month-on-month, the government’s gross borrowings for February was 128.4 percent higher than the P47.659 billion recorded in January.
Of the total, external gross borrowings for February reached P110.339 billion.
Bulk of the borrowings from offshore institutions came from global bonds exchange, which accounted for P102.682 billion for the month of February, while the government paid around P10.332 billion for maturing Treasury Bills, which comprised most of the domestic borrowings for the same month.
The Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) said last year the financing mix should continue to favor domestic borrowings in the years ahead. The borrowing program is projected to follow the 80:20 mix from 2019 to 2022.
For this year the DBCC made a slight adjustment to the borrowing mix as the government is projected to borrow 74-percent locally and 26 percent from foreign entities.