Govt debt eased further in November
Credit to Author: Mayvelin U. Caraballo, TMT| Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2020 16:16:51 +0000
THE national government’s outstanding debt eased further to P7.70 trillion in November on account of net redemptions of domestic government securities, the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) announced on Thursday.
In a statement, the Treasury bureau said the amount was a 2.5-percent or P196.43-billion decrease from October’s P7.90 trillion.
“Of the total debt stock, 33.6 percent are external debt, while 66.4 percent are domestic debt,” it added.
Domestic borrowings totaling P5.11 trillion — down 3.6 percent from the October amount — accounted for the bulk of the outstanding debt, while external debt decreased by 0.3 percent to P2.59 trillion.
Outstanding debt the year before stood at P7.19 trillion, with domestic and foreign obligations at P4.70 trillion and P2.48 trillion, respectively.
The BTr explained that lower domestic obligations during the month was “mainly due to the net redemption of government securities amounting to P189.15 billion and P0.01 billion effect of peso appreciation1 on onshore dollar bonds.”
The bureau attributed the decline in external debt to the combined effect of local and third-currency foreign exchange adjustments, which decreased the value of foreign debt by P560 million and P6.18 billion, respectively.
A foreign exchange rate of P50.75 against the dollar was used for the latest data, compared with October’s P50.76:$1. The exchange rate used a year earlier was P52.38:$1.
“At the same time, net repayments of external loans amounted to P0.53 billion,” the BTr said.
Government-guaranteed debt, meanwhile, eased from October by 0.6 percent or P2.65 billion to P474.99 billion in November. It was down 0.7 percent from the year-ago figure.
The month-on-month decline, the bureau said, “was due to foreign exchange movements which reduced the value of external guarantees by P1.61 billion.”
Earlier, the Treasury said the national government would borrow more money from local sources in the first quarter of this year.
January-to-March borrowings were set at P420 billion, up 90.90 percent from P220 billion in the fourth quarter of 2019 and 16.66 percent from P360 billion in the same period this year.
Of the amount set, the government would borrow P240 billion through the issuance of Treasury bills and the remaining P180 billion through Treasury bonds.