Govt debt servicing accelerated in Sept
Credit to Author: Mayvelin U. Caraballo, TMT| Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2019 16:11:47 +0000
Debt servicing by the national government accelerated in September as the state ramped up its domestic interest payments.
Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) data show over the weekend that debt payments of the national government rose to P48.92 billion during the month.
The September amount was a 26.76-percent increase from the P38.59 billion recorded in the same month last year.
Interest payments, which accounted for 88.08 percent of the total, grew by 31.88 percent to P43.09 billion from P32.67 billion a year ago.
Domestic interest payments recorded a 44.56-percent rise to P34.33 billion during the month from a year ago’s P23.75 billion. Foreign interest payments fell by 1.87 percent to P8.75 billion.
Amortization expenses, meanwhile, declined by 1.50 percent to P5.82 billion from P5.91 billion a year ago.
No domestic amortization expenses were recorded in September as foreign ones accounted for the total.
Year-to-date, debt payments fell by 10.04 percent to P558.21 billion from P620.52 billion in the same period in 2018.
Last year, the government paid P775.589 billion to creditors, a 13.9-percent increase from P680.466 billion in 2017.
The government’s outstanding debt stood at P7.90 trillion as of end-September, a 0.4-percent or P31.39-billion decrease from August’s record-high P7.93 trillion because of the movements of local currency and net repayment of external and domestic loans.
Of the total stock, 33.51 percent were sourced from external markets while 66.49 percent were borrowed domestically.
Domestic borrowings totalling P5.25 trillion — down 0.3 percent from the August amount — accounted for the bulk of outstanding debt, while external debt declined by 0.6 percent to P2.64 trillion.
Outstanding debt the year before stood at P7.15 trillion, with domestic and foreign obligations at P4.58 trillion and P2.57 trillion, respectively.
Government-guaranteed debt, meanwhile, eased from August by 1.2 percent or P5.84 billion to P484.42 billion in September. It was up 0.6 percent from the year-ago figure.