MANILA, June 7 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines' gross international reserves (GIR) rose to 104.48 billion U.S. dollars at the end of May from 102.65 billion dollars at the end of April, the Philippine central bank said Friday.
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 May 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 increase in the GIR level reflected mainly the national government's net foreign currency deposits with the BSP, which include proceeds from its issuance of the ROP (Republic of the Philippines) Global Bonds, and net income from the BSP's investments abroad," the BSP said. ■