THE outstanding debt of the national government as of November 2018 has increased to P7.195 trillion, higher by 11.8 percent compared to the P6.437 trillion recorded in the same month for 2017, data from the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) showed.
The increases were attributed to the rise in both the country’s domestic and external debt levels.
Month-on-month (MoM), the country’s outstanding debt posted a slight uptick of 0.4 percent coming from P7.167 trillion in October 2018.
Broken down, domestic debt inched higher by 11.9 percent to P4.707 trillion, from P4.208 trillion in November 2017; while debt from foreign financial institutions amounted to P2.487 trillion, higher by 11.6 percent than the P2.229 trillion in 2017.
“For the month, the registered increase in domestic debt was due to the net issuance of government securities amounting to P88.33 billion as the committee fully awarded Treasury bonds amid strong market demand. This was slightly offset by the appreciation of the peso that decreased the value of onshore dollar bonds by P0.57 billion,” the BTr said in a statement on Thursday.
On a monthly basis, the government’s domestic debt posted an increase of 1.9 percent coming from the October level of P4.620 trillion, while external debt posted a contraction of 2.3 percent coming from P2.546 trillion in October 2018.
Meanwhile, the national government’s total outstanding guaranteed debt declined by 1.5 percent to P471.799 billion in November coming from P478.788 billion in the same month for 2017. MoM, this also posted a contraction of 2.7 percent from P484.711 billion.
“The reduction in NG guarantees was due to the impact of currency fluctuations on both dollar and third-currency denominated external guarantees amounting to P6.22 billion and P0.75 billion, respectively,” the BTr explained.
Domestic guaranteed obligations for the month amounted to P186.138 billion, a decrease of 4.6 percent from P195.024 billion in November 2017; while external guaranteed debt reached P285.661 billion, an uptick of 0.7 percent compared to the previous year’s level of P283.764 billion.
From the outstanding debt of the government for November, 34.6 percent was sourced externally and 65.4 percent, domestically.