MANILA, May 7 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines' gross international reserves (GIR) decreased to 103.4 billion U.S. dollars at the end of April from 104.1 billion dollars at the end of March, the Philippine central bank said Tuesday.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said the latest GIR level represents a more than adequate external liquidity buffer equivalent to 7.7 months' worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
The central bank added that the April GIR level is about 5.9 times the country's short-term external debt based on original maturity and 3.6 times based on residual maturity.
"The month-on-month decrease in the GIR level reflected mainly the national government's net foreign currency withdrawals from its deposits with the BSP to settle its foreign currency debt obligations and pay for its various expenditures," the BSP said. ■