MANILA, May 8 (Xinhua) -- The Philippine central bank has said the country's gross international reserves (GIR) level, based on preliminary data, settled at 104.6 billion U.S. dollars at the end of April from 106.7 billion dollars at the end of March.
In a statement released on Wednesday night, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said the April GIR level provides a robust external liquidity buffer, equivalent to 7.2 months' worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
The central bank said the latest GIR level is about 3.6 times the country's short-term external debt based on residual maturity.
"The month-on-month decrease in the GIR level reflected mainly the national government's drawdowns on its foreign currency deposits with the BSP to meet its external debt obligations and pay for its various expenditures and net foreign exchange operations," the central bank said. ■
