MANILA, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines posted a surplus of 1.04 billion U.S. dollars in overall balance of payments (BOP) in August, higher than the 657 million dollar BOP surplus recorded a year earlier, Philippine central bank data showed.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) attributed the surplus to the additional allocation of special drawing rights to the Philippines, given the International Monetary Fund's efforts to increase global liquidity amid the pandemic and the BSP's income from its investments abroad.
However, the BSP said this surplus was partly offset by the national government's foreign currency withdrawals from its deposits with the BSP as it settled its foreign currency debt obligations and paid for various expenditures and the BSP's net foreign exchange operations.
"The BOP surplus in August reduced the cumulative BOP deficit in January-August 2021 to 253 million U.S. dollars from a deficit of 1.3 billion U.S. dollars in the first seven months of the year," the BSP said in a statement released Thursday.
Notwithstanding, the BSP said the current year-to-date BOP level reverses the 4.77 billion dollar surplus recorded in the same period a year ago.
"Based on preliminary data, this cumulative BOP deficit was partly attributed to a wider merchandise trade deficit and lower net foreign borrowings by the national government compared to the same period last year," the BSP said.
The BSP said the BOP position reflects an increase in the final gross international reserves level to 107.96 billion dollars as of end-August 2021 from 107.15 billion dollars as of end-July 2021. Enditem
