February govt debt balloons to P8.16T

THE national government’s outstanding debt expanded to a record P8.16 trillion at the end of February on the back of net issuances of both foreign and local state-issued securities, data from the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) showed on Friday.

In a statement, the Treasury bureau said the amount was a 5.2- percent or P402.25- billion increase from the P7.76 trillion posted at end-January.

“Of the total debt stock, 33 percent were sourced externally, while 67 percent are domestic debt,” it added.

Domestic borrowings totaling P5.44 trillion — up 6.4 percent from the end- January amount — accounted for the bulk of outstanding debt, while external debt accelerated by 2.9 percent to P2.71 trillion.

Outstanding debt the year before stood at P7.45 trillion, with domestic and foreign obligations at P4.89 trillion and P2.55 trillion, respectively.

The bureau attributed last month’s higher domestic obligations “to the net issuances of government securities amounting to P326.06 billion.”

This included the successful offering of three-year retail Treasury bonds worth P310.8 billion, of which P60.8 billion was used to swap near-maturing domestic debt.

The BTr traced the growth in external debt to the effect of currency fluctuations on both dollar- and third-currency-denominated debt amounting to P2.18 billion and P3.80 billion, respectively.

“Net availment of foreign loans added P70.19 billion, which includes 1.2-billion euro ($1.3 billion) in three- and nine-year eurodenominated global bonds and a $100-million IBRD (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) program loan,” it said.

A foreign exchange rate of P50.89 against the dollar was used for the latest data, compared with end-January’s P50.85:$1. The exchange rate used a year earlier was P51.76:$1.

Government-guaranteed debt eased from end-January by 0.8 percent or P3.93 billion to P484.35 billion at end- February. It was up 2.3 percent from the year-ago figure.

The month-on-month fall, the bureau said, “was due to the net redemption of both local and foreign guarantees amounting to P5.30 billion and P0.04 billion, respectively.”

This was tempered by local and third-currency exchange rate fluctuations that increased the value of external guarantees by P0.19 billion and P1.22 billion, respectively, it added.