Government debt payment in October lowest in 6 months

The government paid P19.879 billion worth of debt in October.

Latest data from the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) showed that last October’s debt payment was the lowest since April, when the government paid P16.083 billion.

Payments for amortization and interest in October were 41.3 percent lower than September’s P33.891 billion.

On a year-on-year basis, last October’s payments for government liabilities went down by 28.8 percent from P27.905 billion in the same month last year.

At the start of the fourth quarter, P16.767 billion in interest was paid. The bulk of interest payments made in October was for domestic debt paper worth P10.289 billion. The remaining P6.478 billion settled the interest on foreign debt.

Amortization payments in October, meanwhile, accounted for the smaller chunk at P3.112 billion, composed of P608 million domestic and P2.504 billion foreign liabilities.

From January to October, government debt servicing totaled P356.998 billion, 28.3 percent lower than the P498.045 billion in liabilities settled during the first 10 months of 2013.

At the end of October, interest payments amounted to P274.16 billion, while payments for amortization reached P82.838 billion.

Early this month, the BTr reported that the government’s outstanding debt decreased by 0.2 percent to P5.714 trillion as of October from P5.724 trillion last September on the back of lower domestic and foreign borrowings at the beginning of the fourth quarter.