The country’s balance of payments (BOP), which counts all the money that enters and leaves the country, swung to a deficit in November despite the relative calm in financial markets that kept foreign investments in positive territory.
Data from the central bank showed the country posted a BOP deficit of $314 million in November, coming from a $24-million surplus the month before.
November’s BOP position was the first deficit since June of this year, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said.
A deficit means more money left the country than came in.
The country’s BOP deficit widened to $3.72 billion from the start of the year to November, exceeding the full-year projection of a deficit of $3.4 billion.
Last year, the country enjoyed a surplus of $5.1 billion.
In January of this year, the country posted its highest-ever deficit in any single month of $4.48 billion—a result mainly of the investors fleeing emerging markets like the Philippines amid heightened risk aversion.
This followed the US Federal Reserve’s pronouncements that it would taper monthly asset purchases, which had helped the prop up the American economy since 2009.
The Fed’s asset purchases, which at their height pumped $85 billion in freshly printed cash into the world economy, ended last October.
Meanwhile, recurring income from abroad rose in the third quarter of the year, highlighting the underlying strength of the Philippine economy in the face of volatile financial market conditions.
In a separate statement, the BSP said the country’s current account balance rose to a surplus of $3 billion in July to September, better than the $2.6 billion recorded in the same three months of 2013.
For the nine months ending September, the country posted a current account of $6.8 billion, or short of the $7 billion in the same period last year.
The current account refers to the country’s recurring income streams from abroad.
This includes remittances from overseas Filipino workers, revenues of dollar-earning industries such as outsourcing and tourism, and the difference between imports and exports.