Govt debt up 7.9% at P6.41T in June

NATIONAL government debt rose to P6.41 trillion in June as the government issued more securities and the peso continued to trade weaker against the dollar, the Bureau of the Treasury ( BTr) said on Wednesday.

Domestic borrowings accounted for 65 percent or P4.18 trillion of the total debt, while 35 percent or P2.23 trillion were owed to foreign creditors, it said.

Domestic debt grew by 9.3 percent from P3.82 trillion year- on- year, while foreign obligations rose by 5.2 percent from P2.11 trillion.

The country’s foreign loans were computed at an exchange rate of P50.44 to a dollar in June, compared with P47 used a year earlier. Month- on- month, the national government’s outstanding debt rose by P71.97 billion or 1.13 percent in June from May.

Domestic debt rose by P49.06 billion or 1.2 percent “primarily due to the net issuance of government securities amounting to P48.72 billion and peso depreciation that increased the value of onshore dollar bonds by P0.34 billion,” the treasury bureau noted. Debts guaranteed by the national government were down 12.4 percent at P493 billion from P563 billion.

Month- on- month, government-guaranteed debt dropped P450 million or 0.1 percent due to net repayments of both external and domestic guarantees amounting to P1.05 billion and P1.78 billion, alongside the P1.58 billion effect of third currency revaluation.

“These more than offset the P3.97 billion effect of the weaker peso,” the bureau said.