PHL foreign reserves widens to $84.1B in March

Philippine international reserves expanded by $500 million to $84.1 billion in March, from $83.6 billion in February, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said Friday. The March gross international reserves or GIR is also $7.972-billion wider than the $76.128 billion recorded a year earlier. The GIR last month could pay for 11.9 months of imports of goods and payments for services  and income, the central bank said, noting its was also equivalent to 9.9 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 6.3 times based on residual maturity. “Inflows from the foreign exchange operations and investment income of the BSP, foreign currency deposits by the national government, as well as revaluation gains on the BSP’s gold holdings contributed to the increase in the end-March 2012 level,” Bangko Sentral noted in a statement. “These inflows were partly offset, however, by foreign exchange outflows such as payments for maturing foreign exchange obligations by the national government and foreign currency withdrawals by the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp.,” it added. — VS, GMA News