PNoy: Govt may purchase capital goods amid peso appreciation

The government is eyeing to purchase capital goods as the peso continues to appreciate against the greenback, President Benigno Aquino III said Friday. Aquino said that this is one of the measures the government is considering after the peso strengthened Thursday to 42.53:$1, higher than his “comfort level" of 43:$1. “Relatively mas konting piso kakailangan para bilhin itong capital goods na ito na gagamitin natin, for instance, sa infrastructure program (We relatively need less peso to buy the capital goods that we need for our infrastructure program, for instance)," he said. The President said the government may purchase tunnel-boring machines to create tunnels instead of building roads on the sides of mountains. Creating tunnels would be faster and would cost the government less to maintain, he explained. “Baka ito yung magandang pagkakataon na mapurchase na natin itong mga capital goods na ‘to kung saan ma-address din yung balance between the peso and the dollar (This might be a good opportunity for us to purchase capital goods and at the same time address the balance between the peso and the dollar)," Aquino said. “We want to try and remove the excess volumes of dollars in the country," he said. Aquino had earlier said the continuous strengthening of the peso is a cause for concern because it may impact negatively on the export sector and on the money sent home by overseas Filipino workers. Aquino however noted that the government can only do so much because the movement of currencies all over the world is volatile due to the general weakness of the US dollar. The President said that world leaders, including him, will likely tackle how to stabilize various currencies during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Yokohama, Japan next week. - GMANews.TV