PH opens 2023 with $99.7B GIR -- BSP

The Philippines opened 2023 with almost a hundred billion dollars in foreign currency reserves — enough to cover the country’s import requirements for over half-a-year — as the national government increased its foreign currency deposits with the central bank resulting from its fund raising efforts in the offshore debt market, data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed.

Preliminary BSP data showed the gross international reserves (GIR) level —a measure of a country’s ability to settle import payments and service foreign debt — as of end-January 2023 stood at $99.7 billion, higher than the end-December 2022 level of $96.1 billion.

The central bank’s reserve assets consist of foreign investments, gold, foreign exchange, reserve position in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and special drawing rights.

“The month-on-month increase in the GIR level reflected mainly the national government’s (NG) net foreign currency deposits with the BSP, which include proceeds from its issuance