BSP to remit P14.2B to Treasury Bureau next year

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on Friday said it will remit cash dividends amounting to P14.2 billion to the Bureau of Treasury (BTr) by January. At the launching of the "New Generation Philippine Currency," BSP Gov. Amando Tetangco said the amount it will remit to the national coffers represented the central bank's unpaid cash dividends from 2003 to 2006 and last year. It can be recalled that the Senate committee on finance earlier looked into the alleged failure of the BSP to pay P16-billion in cash dividends to the national government for 2003 to 2006. Tetangco clarified that the amount of unremitted cash dividends was settled after a meeting among Sen. Franklin Drilon, who heads the Senate committee on finance, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, and Commission of Audit chairman Reynaldo Villar. Last July, during its 17th anniversary celebration, the BSP remitted P4.475-billion cash dividends and P450-million property dividends to the BTr. The amount of cash dividends the BSP will remit to the national government for the 2009 earnings reached P9.8 billion, up 46 percent from the P6.7 billion the central bank remitted for its 2008 earnings. In 2009, BSP's net income reached about P13.16 billion, up 47 percent from P8.93 billion it earned in 2008. The cash dividends for 2009 earnings would be the second biggest amount the BSP would remit to the BTr, next to the P10.1-billion cash dividends declared in 1997. The BSP booked a huge foreign exchange loss amounting to P34.4 billion in January-June this year due to the sharp appreciation of the peso against the greenback. The foreign exchange losses in the first half of the year was more than 42 times the P790-million losses it booked in the same period last year. Had it not for the foreign exchange losses, the central bank's earnings would have more than quadrupled to P16.93 billion in the first half of the year from P3.89 billion in the same period last year. —JE/OMG, GMANews.TV