The country’s dollar reserves slipped anew in July this year, marking the fourth consecutive month that the country’s gross international reserves (GIR) went down for the year.
In a report on Tuesday, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported that the country’s GIR slipped to $76.89 billion in July.
The BSP blamed the outflows arising from the payments made by the National Government (NG) for its maturing foreign exchange obligations.
Also among the reasons for the decline include the foreign exchange operations of the BSP and revaluation adjustments on the BSP’s gold holdings resulting from the decrease in the price of gold in the international market.
The July GIR is lower than the $77.53 billion level seen in the previous month and the $81.07 billion seen in July 2017.
The country’s GIR is the economy’s dollar cushion against potential rapid foreign exchange volatilities in the global scene.
Despite the continuous drop in its level, the BSP said the July GIR remains as “adequate external liquidity buffer.”
In particular, the current level of dollar reserves is still equivalent to 7.4 months’ worth of imports of goods, and payments of services and primary income.
It is also equivalent to 6.1 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 4.1 times based on residual maturity.