Government plans to increase peso borrowings

The Philippine government plans to increase its domestic borrowings to manage its debt burden and narrow the budget gap. “Obviously, the goal is to increase the peso mix in the [borrowing plan]. That is something we have to strategize. But clearly, the way to do it is reduce the foreign currency portion," Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said Wednesday. The portion of foreign loans in government debts of P4.357 trillion was 43 percent or P1.921 trillion as of March 31. The P2.536 trillion in peso loans amount to 57 percent of the total, according to the Finance Department. “We're looking right now organizationally on how we can consolidate the various liability management teams within the government so that we can combine our bigger resources there," he said. “There are years – I think three, four years down the road – there was a little bunching up, so we'll have to address that," Purisima said. The size or amount of loans with maturity dates close to each other was not available, prompting Purisima to say that immediate goal was “to continue to lengthen the maturities (and) reduce the bunching up." —VS, GMANews.TV