The Philippines’ buffer fund or US dollar reserves remained stable at $101.51 billion as of end-April, slightly lower than end-March’s $101.55 billion after the government paid some maturing loans last month.

Based on Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) preliminary data, the end-April gross international reserves (GIR) is also lower compared to same period last year of $105.4 billion.

The lower GIR level “reflected mainly the National Government’s (NG) payments of its foreign currency debt obligations,” said the BSP.

Meanwhile, the BSP said the latest GIR level is “more than adequate external liquidity buffer” which is equivalent to 7.6 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income. “It is also about 5.9 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 4.1 times based on residual maturity,” it added.

As for the net international reserves or the difference between the BSP’s reserve assets or GIR and reserve liabilities which are short-term foreign debt, credit and loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), this dropped to $101.47 billion as of end-April from $101.51 billion previously.

The GIR is composed of the central bank’s reserve assets such as foreign investments, gold, foreign exchange, reserve position in the IMF, and special drawing rights (SDRs). SDRs are IMF assets and not its currency and mostly available in US dollar, Euro, Japanese Yen, British Pound and the Chinese Yuan.

The BSP said a GIR will be considered adequate if it can settle at least 100 percent cover for the payment of both public and private sector foreign liabilities that will mature within a twelve-month period.

As of end-April, the BSP-managed foreign investments totaled $85.52 billion, up from the previous month’s $85.4 billion but lower when compared to same period last year of $89.56 billion.

The BSP’s gold holdings also stood at $10.24 billion end-April from $10.07 billion previously. It was also higher from same period last year of $9.28 billion.

Meanwhile, the BSP’s reserve position in the IMF and SDRs stood at $809.3 million and $3.8 billion, respectively, compared to the previous year’s $765 million and $3.78 billion.

After selling US dollars to support the depreciating peso in the second half of 2022, the GIR lost $14.7 billion. The BSP was able to replenish the US dollar stock again after it hit a low of $93 billion in September last year. It closed 2022 with $96.15 billion.

The peso weakened to a record low of P59 vis-à-vis the US dollar on Sept. 29 and was poised to break past P60 in October but the BSP’s active participation in the spot market prevented the exchange rate from breaching the psychological level.

For this year, the BSP is projecting a modest GIR of $100 billion.