MANILA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines' gross international reserves (GIR) level rose to 109.8 billion U.S. dollars as of end-December 2020 from the end-November 2020 level of 104.82 billion U.S. dollars, the Philippine central bank said on Friday.
"The latest GIR level represents an adequate external liquidity buffer, which can help cushion the domestic economy against external shocks," the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said in a statement.
According to the BSP, this buffer is equivalent to 11.7 months' worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
"It is also about 9.6 times the country's short-term external debt based on original maturity and 5.5 times based on residual maturity," the BSP added.
The month-on-month increase in the GIR level reflected inflows mainly from its foreign exchange operations, national government's foreign currency deposits with the BSP of proceeds from its issuance of the country's global bonds, and revaluation gains from the BSP's gold holdings due to the increase in the price of gold in the international market, the BSP said.
The BSP said these inflows were partly offset, however, by the national government's payments of its foreign currency debt obligations.
Similarly, the BSP said the net international reserves, which refers to the difference between its GIR and total short-term liabilities, increased by 5 billion U.S. dollars to 109.8 billion U.S. dollars as of end-December 2020 from the end-November 2020 level of 104.8 billion U.S. dollars. Enditem
