PH registered BOP surplus of $274M in April
By Michelle V. RemoThe country’s balance of payments (BOP) reversed to a surplus in April as robust dollar inflows, mainly remittances and foreign investments, exceeded outflows.
The country’s balance of payments (BOP) reversed to a surplus in April as robust dollar inflows, mainly remittances and foreign investments, exceeded outflows.
Bent on pushing more money out of vaults and into the economy, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has issued a memorandum to banks that will further limit their access to the BSP’s special deposit account (SDA).
After reporting a huge net loss in 2012, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has requested from the government a rescue package composed of tax exemption, additional capitalization and a mechanism for sharing of losses.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ losses ballooned in 2012 for the third straight year largely due to efforts to stem the peso’s appreciation, huge interest payments, and declining revenue from gold sales.
Foreign “hot money” surged in April as the investment grade assigned on the country served to boost investors’ appetite for peso-denominated stocks and bonds.
The peso fell on Thursday following the release of reports that the euro zone contracted in the first quarter and that industrial production in the United States fell in April.
The rate of rise in remittances registered its slowest pace in three and a half years amid the challenges now facing the global economy.
The peso fell on Wednesday amid reports that growth in remittances from overseas-based Filipinos in March was at its slowest since September 2009.
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has directed pawnshops to strictly implement identification requirements for customers to help ensure that items being pawned are not stolen goods or illicit covers for money laundering.
Banks in general have not relaxed their credit requirements as far as extending real estate loans to individual borrowers is concerned, BDO Capital and Investment Corp. president Eduardo Francisco said.
Private sector economists polled by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas shared the same view as the BSP’s that the country would continue to enjoy modest and within-target inflation until 2015.
The government hopes to trim the budget deficit in the second and third quarters of the year, before ramping up spending in the fourth quarter.
