Gov’t borrowings nearly doubled in Jan-April
GOVERNMENT’S borrowings from both domestic and foreign sources almost doubled to P240.8 billion as of the end of April compared to the level in the same period last year.
The latest Bureau of the Treasury data showed that gross borrowings during the first four months rose 87 percent from P128.6 billion a year ago.
End-April gross external borrowings jumped to P129.6 billion from P79.7 billion last year, with proceeds from the global bond sale in February accounting for P95.1 billion.
Last February, the Philippines sold $2 billion in 25-year sovereign bonds at a record-low yield of 3.7 percent. Of the proceeds, $500 million will be new money to be infused into the budget, while $1.5 billion will be used to retire previously issued IOUs maturing between October this year and October 2034.
Program loans from the Asian Development Bank—one for capital market reform and another for infrastructure capacity building—contributed a total of P28.3 billion.
Project loans from multilateral lenders totaled P6.1 billion.
Domestic borrowings from the sale of treasury bills and bonds, meanwhile, more than doubled to P111.3 billion from about P49 billion a year ago.
Treasury bonds contributed P97.2 billion, while treasury bills amounted to P14.1 billion.
Last Friday, the Treasury announced that the government would borrow P135 billion from domestic sources in the third quarter through the auction of treasury bills and bonds—the same volume as the offerings in the first two quarters, as the Duterte administration had retained the borrowing program for the year.
The government had programmed to borrow P674.8 billion this year, lower than last year’s program of P710.8 billion, to slash the debt stock or the share of outstanding debt to the gross domestic product to a record-low of 41.8 percent.
