MANILA, Philippines—The country’s foreign currency reserves, which determines the Philippines’ ability to service its obligations and engage in commercial transactions with the rest of the world, registered a new historic high of $39.6 billion as of end-June.

Armando Suratos, deputy governor at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, said in a statement that the latest gross international reserves (GIR) level was enough to cover 6.8 months’ worth of imported goods and payment of services.

The BSP credited the increase in the GIR, which stood at $39.59 billion in May and $39.3 billion in April, to the increase in foreign currency-denominated deposits by the national government and the central bank’s income from its investments offshore.

The positive impact of the additional government deposits and BSP investment was only partially offset by the withdrawals by the national government to pay for maturing foreign currency-denominated obligations and the decline in gold prices.

The country’s GIR is also composed of the country’s gold holdings. About 74 percent of the country’s GIR are in US dollars.

The BSP also reported that the country’s net international reserves (NIR), the difference between the GIR and the central bank’s short-term liabilities, rose to $38.6 billion as of end-June from $38.5 billion in end-May.

Earlier, BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said the country’s GIR was being supported by robust remittances from overseas Filipino workers. He said the BSP expects remittances to sustain, if not surpass, last year’s $16.4 billion.

The BSP has doubted projections by some economists that remittances would drop this year because of the job cuts in some countries that affected Filipinos. The BSP said new alternative labor markets abroad have opened—such as Canada, Australia, Qatar—and there was a high demand for Filipinos among foreign employers.