The Philippines managed to cut new borrowings in November last year due to significantly lower financing from domestic creditors.
Data from the Bureau of the Treasury showed that the national government’s gross borrowings reached P26.69 billion in November, down by 78 percent compared with P124.03 billion in the same month in 2020.
While the bulk of the amount of additional borrowing was sourced locally at P16.6 billion, this level of financing was way below than the P114.83 billion recorded a year earlier.
Local borrowings during the month was all for project loans, the Treasury data showed.
Meanwhile, the remaining P10.09 billion comprised loans taken out from the offshore markets.
With reduced debt, the national government’s gross borrowings at end November 2021 declined by seven percent to P2.775 trillion from P2.987 trillion in the same period in the previous year.
Of the total borrowings, foreign financing cornered P528.81 billion, down nine percent from P583.64 billion.
Local borrowings in the first 11 months reached P2.246 trillion, also lower by 6.5 percent compared with P2.404 trillion a year ago.
The government’s fresh debt from January to November accounted for 92.5 percent of the P3 trillion borrowing plan for last year.
As of November 2021, the total outstanding debt stood at P11.931 trillion.
However, the end November debt level was P39.7 billion or 0.3 percent lower compared with P11.971 trillion in October last year.
The decline in debt was primarily driven by the P26.9 billion redemption of government securities, or IOUs, held by local creditors.
In addition, stronger peso also helped in lowering the government’s foreign obligations.
But compared with the outstanding debt in November 2020, the total amount jumped 17.7 percent year-on-year from P10.134 trillion.
Of the total debt stock, 70.7 percent were domestic borrowings, while 29.3 percent were sourced from externally sources.
In November, domestic debt amounted to P8.44 trillion, down 0.3 percent compared with the end-October 2021 level of P8.468 trillion.
External debt, meanwhile, reached P3.49 trillion, 0.4 percent lower compared with P3.503 trillion in the previous month.