PHL’s international reserves at nine-month low in November

THE PHILIPPINES’ gross international reserves (GIR) slipped to a nine-month low in November due to lower gold valuations and bigger outflows due to central bank efforts to tame foreign exchange volatility, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said, but still offered sufficient buffers against shocks.

GIR totaled $82.734 billion as of last month’s end, smaller than a downward-revised $85.106 billion as of October but still more than the year-ago $80.173 billion, preliminary central bank data showed. The tally is also the lowest since February’s $81.878 billion.

The figure sustained a two-month decline coming from the record-high $86.139 billion reserves seen last September. Still, the figure matched the $82.7-billion GIR level projected by the central bank for 2016, and is higher than last year’s $80.667-billion total.

“The decline from October to November was due mainly to outflows arising from the foreign exchange operations of the BSP, revaluation adjustments on the BSP’s gold holdings resulting from the decrease in the price of gold in the international market, and payments made by national government for its maturing foreign exchange obligations,” BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco, Jr. said in a statement late last Wednesday.

The BSP intervened during currency trading that month, which saw the peso trade seven and eight-year lows against the US dollar. At one point the peso hit P50 against the greenback last Nov. 24 — its weakest in over 10 years — before recovering to finish P49.98. —