MANILA, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines' overall balance of payments (BOP) position posted a surplus of 163 million U.S. dollars in October 2019, a reversal from the 458 million U.S. dollars BOP deficit recorded in October 2018, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said on Tuesday.
The BSP said inflows in October 2019 reflected the increase in the national government's net foreign currency deposits and BSP's income from its investments abroad.
"These inflows were offset, however, by outflows representing payments made by the national government on its foreign exchange obligations during the month in review," the BSP added.
On a cumulative basis, the BSP said the BOP position for the period January to October 2019 posted a surplus of 5.73 billion U.S. dollars, a turnaround from the 5.59 billion U.S. dollars BOP deficit recorded in the first ten months of 2018.
The central bank said the surplus may be attributed partly to personal remittance inflows from overseas Filipinos and net inflows of foreign direct investments.
"The BOP position reflects the final gross international reserves (GIR) level of 85.83 billion U.S. dollars as of end-October 2019," the BSP said.
At this level, the BSP said "the GIR represents a more-than-ample liquidity buffer equivalent to 7.5 months' worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income."
"It is also equivalent to 5.5 times the country's short-term external debt based on original maturity and 4.1 times based on residual maturity," the . BSP added
