GOVT DEBT SURGES TO NEW RECORD HIGH OF P8.6T

THE national government’s outstanding debt surged to an all-time high of P8.6 trillion at the end of April amid the accelerated local and foreign borrowings, Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) data showed.

In a statement released on Tuesday, the Treasury said the amount was up by 1.4 percent or P122.89 billion from the adjusted P8.47 trillion in March.

Of the total debt stock, 33 percent was generated from external creditors while 67 percent was raised domestically.

Domestic borrowings totaled P5.86 trillion or 0.9 percent wider than the adjusted March figure of P5.81 trillion while external debt climbed by 2.7 percent to P2.73 trillion.

Outstanding debt last year was P7.78 trillion; P5.20 trillion of which was domestic while P2.58 trillion was foreign.

The BTr traced higher domestic obligations to “net issuance of domestic government securities that amounted to P50.82 billion while peso appreciation merely diminished the value of onshore dollar bonds by P0.17 billion.“

Meanwhile, the bigger external debt in April was attributed to borrowings that amounted to P87.34 billion as the government raised financing to address the coronavirus pandemic.

Currency adjustments, on the other hand, trimmed P15.10 billion from the total foreign obligations, particularly through local currency appreciation, the bureau added.

A foreign exchange rate of P50.44 to the dollar was used for the latest data, compared with March’s P50.78:$1. The exchange rate used a year earlier was P52.09:$1.

Meanwhile, the governmentguaranteed debt dropped in March by 0.9 percent, or P4.13 billion, to P477.68 billion in April. It was 1.1 percent lower than last year’s figure.

“The lower level of guarantees was due to the net redemption of both local and foreign guarantees amounting to P3.24 billion and P0.10 billion, respectively,” the Treasury bureau said.

This was further trimmed by currency adjustments which reduced the value of external guarantees by about P800 million, it added.