Govt debt payments in February
SMALLER amortization expenses dragged the national government’s debt servicing in February by more than 76 percent compared to the payments made a year ago, data released by the Bureau of the Treasury showed.
Debt payments in February settled at P33.29 billion, shrinking by 76.97 percent from the P144.63 billion posted a year before.
Interest payments, which accounted for 93.60 percent of the total, climbed by 103 percent to P31.16 billion from P15.35 billion in February 2020.
Domestic interest payments expanded by 92.45 percent to P22.01 billion in February from P11.43 billion a year earlier, while foreign ones grew by 133 percent to P9.15 billion from P3.91 billion.
Amortization expenses, meanwhile, slid by 98.35 percent to P2.13 billion from P129.28 billion in February 2020.
Foreign amortization accounted for the total as no domestic amortization was posted during the month.
Year-to-date debt payments slipped by 12.93 percent to P253.09 billion from P290.09 billion in the same period in 2020.
In 2020, the government settled P962.46 billion debt to creditors, soaring by 14.24 percent from P842.44 billion in 2019.
The Treasury bureau earlier reported that the national government’s outstanding obligations surged to a new all-time high of P10.40 trillion at end-February. Of the figure, 29 percent was generated from foreign creditors and 71
percent from local ones. Domestic debt reached P7.36 trillion, up by 0.5 percent from end-January’s P7.32 trillion due primarily to net availment of domestic financing.
External debt, meanwhile, went up by 1.4 percent to P3.04 trillion due to the net availment of foreign loans amounting to P14.53 billion and the P36.03 billion effects of local currency depreciation against the dollar.
According to the Department of Budget and Management’s Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing for fiscal year 2021, the national government has a debt service expenditure program of P1.79 trillion for this year.
Of the total, P531 billion will used for interest payments, while P1.26 trillion will be for principal amortization.