Philippine foreign reserves top 2025 BSP estimate

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines closed 2025 with foreign reserves that surpassed the central bank’s own forecasts, buoyed by record gold holdings as a surge in global bullion prices reflected mounting geopolitical tensions and uncertainty over the world economy’s growth.

Latest data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed the country’s gross international reserves (GIR) reached $110.9 billion in 2025, up by 4.3 percent from a year earlier.

The GIR serves as the country’s buffer against external shocks. It also helps an economy finance its imports and foreign debt obligations in extreme conditions when there are no export earnings or foreign loans.

The reserve assets consist of A-rated foreign investments of the central bank, gold and foreign exchange, as well as borrowing authority with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the country’s contributions to the same Washington-based institution.

Last year’s pile exceeded the expectation of the central bank, which predicted the GIR to have ended 2025 at $109 billion.

All that glitters

Gold provided the biggest lift. The value of the central bank’s bullion holdings jumped nearly 69 percent from a year earlier to $18.6 billion, the highest level on record since 1971, as prices climbed to unprecedented highs amid economic and geopolitical unease.

READ: GIR beats official 2025 forecast on bullish gold prices

Gold now accounts for nearly 17 percent of total reserves, up from about 10 percent in 2024.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, BSP Governor Eli Remolona Jr. said the central bank would continue to maintain a well-diversified reserve portfolio.

“We sell gold when it becomes too big a part of our portfolio,” he said.

READ: Gold tops $4,500 for first time on rate cut bets, geopolitics

Declining rates

Meanwhile, offshore investments of the BSP, which accounted for the bulk of the reserve assets, edged down 3 percent from a year earlier to $87 billion amid declining global interest rates.

Special drawing rights with the IMF went up by 4 percent to nearly $4 billion, while the country’s contribution to the Fund increased by 7.7 percent to $727 million.

Moving in the opposite direction were the central bank’s foreign-exchange holdings, which plunged 53 percent to $647 million.

Remolona has said the BSP drew modestly on its reserves to smooth sharp swings in the peso that risked stoking inflation, while foreign-debt servicing by the national government also weighed on reserve levels.

READ: Peso recovers from record low amid calmer US dollar

Overall, the latest GIR level was equivalent to 7.4 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income. It also covers about four times the country’s short-term external debt based on residual maturity.

By convention, GIR is viewed to be adequate if it can finance at least three months’ worth of the country’s imports of goods, and provides at least 100 percent cover for the payment of the country’s foreign liabilities—public and private—falling due within the immediate 12-month period.

For this year, the BSP projected a GIR of $110 billion.