The national government’s gross borrowings in January to October declined by six percent, as both external and domestic financing went down from year ago level, data released by the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) showed.
According to the latest cash operations report posted on the BTr website, the government’s gross borrowings in the first 10 months of the year totaled to P2.75 trillion, down versus the P2.92 trillion raised a year ago.
Data showed that in October last year, the central bank approved the request of the national government for fresh provisional advances worth P540 billion, which was also settled in December.
Gross domestic borrowings as of end-October 2021 accounted for the bigger chunk amounting to P2.35 trillion. This compares with the year ago level of P2.23 trillion.
Of the said amount, P80.84 billion was accounted for by retail onshore dollar bonds in October, while P463.32 billion came from the retail treasury bonds issued in March. The data also showed that P540 billion was accounted for by the reavailment of the short-term loan facility from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas in January.
Also, P1.19 trillion of the domestic borrowings in January to October was in the form of fixed-rate treasury bonds, while a net redemption of P43.94 billion was recorded in treasury bills.
Meanwhile, BTr data showed that gross external borrowings for the period declined 9.7 percent to P518.71 billion from P574.44 billion a year ago.
Project loans totaled to P86.41 billion while P139.98 billion was from program loans.
The Philippine government also raised P121.97 billion from euro bonds and P24.19 billion from its samurai bonds issuances, both in April.
Global bonds in July meanwhile accounted for the remaining P146.17 billion.
In October alone, total gross borrowings amounted to P145.78 billion, down by 78.02 percent from the P663.21 billion recorded in the same period a year ago.
Of the said amount, P133.73 billion was from local lenders while P12.05 billion was from offshore financing.
