9-month debt payments hit P337.12B

AFP FILE PHOTO/ROMEO GACAD

The government paid more debt in September than in the previous month even as the nine-month payments remained slower year-on-year.

Latest Bureau of the Treasury data showed that the government shelled out P33.89 billion to settle maturing liabilities last September, 34-percent higher than the P25.29 billion paid in August.

In September, P28.83 billion worth of interest were paid on top of P5.06 billion in amortization.

Year-on-year, debt servicing last September was 24.8-percent lower than the P45.06 billion paid in the same month last year.

During the January-to-September period, debt payments totaled P337.12 billion, down 28.3 percent from P470.14 billion in payments made in the first nine months of 2013.

As of end-September, interest payments reached P257.39 billion while amortization or principal repayments amounted to P79.73 billion.

The Treasury earlier reported that government debt inched up by 2 percent to P5.72 trillion as of end-September from P5.61 trillion during the same nine-month period last year.

The slight increase in government liabilities was driven by domestic net issuance as well as the impact of the peso’s depreciation against the US dollar, the Department of Finance (DOF) had explained.

Still, the DOF had pointed out that less borrowings amid a growing economy slashed the share of the general government debt to the gross domestic product (GDP).

The ratio of the general government debt—the outstanding liabilities of the national government combined with debts of social security institutions and local government units—to the GDP dropped to 37.3 percent as of end-June this year from 44.3 percent in 2009, or before President Benigno Aquino III assumed office.