The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) took out a reserves-related loan worth $275.8 million in March, data showed.
This was the fourth time since October last year that the BSP borrowed a short-term loan as part of its gross international reserves (GIR). The most recent was in January, worth $587.4 million.
The loan is considered GIR liabilities. The BSP said the GIR-related loan “was mainly due to (the) reserve management operations” of the central bank.
The country’s GIR amounted to $104.033 billion as of end-March, up from $101.994 billion in end-February.
The BSP reported that net international reserves (NIR) increased to $103.8 billion as of end-March from end-February’s $102 billion. NIR refers to the difference between the BSP’s reserve assets, which is the GIR, and reserve liabilities or the short-term foreign debt and credit and loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
As described by the BSP, NIR includes gold monetization and revaluation of reserve assets and reserve-related liabilities that are not part of the country’s balance of payments. It is also the difference between the GIR and short-term liabilities and the Use of Fund Credits which are “the sum of outstanding drawings from the IMF under various policies and facilities, other than drawings under the reserve tranche.”
The BSP’s reserve assets are composed of gold, foreign investments, foreign exchange, reserve position in the IMF, and special drawing rights or SDRs in the IMF.
As of end-March, the BSP’s gold reserves amounted to $10.531 billion, up from $10.337 billion in February.
BSP’s foreign investments mainly in securities and bonds totaled $87.911 billion, up from $86.449 billion in the previous month.
The central bank has foreign exchange of $1.071 billion which was higher from $677.8 million in February.
The BSP’s reserve position in the IMF totaled $741.3 million at the end of the first quarter while SDR holdings remained at $3.76 billion. The amount changes only depending on the SDR conversion rate.
For this year, the BSP forecasts GIR to end at $102 billion compared to the 2023 reserves of $103.753 billion. The highest GIR level was at $108.794 billion recorded in 2021.
Before October 2023, based on available data, the BSP has not increased its GIR-related liabilities in the last 10 years where data only goes back to 2013.