Borrowings of gov’t hit 8-year high

The national government’s gross borrowings hit an eight-year high of P947.6 billion in 2018 as foreign debt rose four-fifths mainly to finance big-ticket infrastructure projects.

The latest Bureau of the Treasury data showed that last year’s combined domestic and external gross borrowings were the biggest since 2010’s P1.02 trillion and 5-percent higher than the P901.7 billion in 2017.

Gross external borrowings last year amounted to P303.1 billion, up 80 percent from P168.1 billion in the previous year.

More than three-fifths, or 62 percent of last year’s foreign borrowings amounting to P188.6 billion, came from the sale of debt paper offshore, including P102.7 billion in dollar-denominated global bonds, P74 billion in yen-denominated samurai bonds and P11.9 billion renminbi-denominated panda bonds.

The Philippines last year made its first foray in China’s panda market and returned to Japan’s samurai market to end an eight-year absence.

The government plans to again issue panda and samurai bonds this year besides a possible return to the dollar market before yearend even as it already borrowed $1.5 billion in new 10-year IOUs in January.

Meanwhile, program loans extended by multilateral lenders and development partners reached P80.4 billion on top of P33.9 billion in project loans.

The combined foreign program and project loans of P114.3 billion in 2018 were the biggest since 1986, based on available Treasury data. —BEN O. DE VERA