RP dollar reserves widen by 26% to record $53.54B —BSP

The country's gross international reserves (GIR) widened by 26 percent to a record $53.54 billion in September from the same month last year, the central bank said Thursday. Month-on-month the GIR — the sum of all foreign exchange flowing into the country — expanded by 7.3 percent from August, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said. The “appreciable build-up in the preliminary GIR level [in] September stemmed primarily from the proceeds of the national government’s 10-year peso-denominated global bonds issuance and a loan program from the World Bank," BSP Deputy Gov. Nestor Espenilla Jr. said. Overseas investors gobbled up $1 billion worth of the Philippine peso-denominated global bond issue last month, the BSP said, noting that the maiden issue of the bonds was 12 times oversubscribed with tenders totaling $13 billion. BSP data showed that the central bank’s income from investments abroad surged $44.562 billion in September this year from $35.797 billion in the same period in 2009. Central bank gold holdings gained on account of higher prices in the international market, Espenilla said. Gold holdings totaled $7.394 billion from $5.01 billion year-on-year, the central bank said. The GIR in September could cover 9.4 months worth of imports of goods and payments of services, Espenilla said. Also, the GIR at $53.54 billion is equivalent to 9.7 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 5.3 times based on residual maturity, according to him. Originally, the BSP expected the country’s GIR to hit $47 billion to $48 billion this year. The country’s GIR widened by 17.8 percent to $44.24 billion in 2009 from $37.55 billion in 2008 on strong inflows, higher government deposits, and higher value of central bank gold. —JE/VS/OMG, GMANews.TV