The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said Friday the Monetary Board has approved a total of $17.7 billion public sector foreign borrowings in 2020 mostly for COVID-19 response, up 82.5 percent from 2019’s $9.7 billion.
In the fourth quarter of 2020 alone, the BSP approved $4.2 billion public sector foreign borrowings, 7.7 percent higher than the previous quarter’s $3.9 billion.

The BSP in a statement listed these foreign loans which were approved in the last three months of 2020 as: the $2.8 billion bond issuance; three project loans worth $814.3 million; and two program loans worth $600 million.
About 97 percent or $4.04 billion are foreign borrowings made by the National Government. These include the general financing requirements of the government for the last quarter of 2020 amounting to $2.8 billion; the $700 million program/project loans in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; disaster risk financing worth $500 million; customs modernization worth $88.3 million; and water transmission improvement worth $126 million.
The BSP-approved $17.7 billion public sector foreign borrowings for 2020 includes the following: three bond issuances amounting to $6.6 billion; 15 project loans worth $3.7 billion; and 16 program loans worth $7.5 billion.
According to the BSP, the “borrowings approved in 2020 were 82.5 percent higher compared to the 2019 figure of $9.7 billion due to higher bond issuances (88.6 percent increase from $3.5 billion in 2019 to $6.6 billion in 2020) and surge in program loans (435.7 percent increase from $1.4 billion in 2019 to $7.5 billion in 2020).”