Gov’t borrowings reached P3.05T after 11 months

The national government’s running tally of its gross borrowings as of end-November declined to P3.05 trillion as the Bureau of the Treasury netted out the amount it repaid to the central bank last September.

Unlike the end-October report, which showed a total of P840 billion (short-term borrowings from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) amounting to P300 billion in March and P540 billion in October), the Treasury’s latest figures for November instead deducted the repayment for the first tranche in September from the year-to-date tally.

As such, the end-November total gross borrowings dropped from P3.22 trillion as of October.

National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon earlier explained that the borrowings under the Treasury and the BSP’s repurchase agreement involved rollover debt or extended liabilities.

The end-November total nonetheless still slightly exceeded the P3-trillion borrowing program for 2020.

End-November domestic borrowings amounted to P2.46 trillion, down from end-October’s P2.65 trillion, as only the outstanding P540-billion repo remained counted in the Treasury tally.

At the end of 11 months, the government also raised a net of P465.3 billion from short-dated treasury bills, P631.7 billion from fixed-rate treasury bonds as well as P827.1 billion from retail treasury bonds (RTBs) sold to small investors in February (P310.8 billion) and August (a record P516.3 billion).

The amount raised from local debt sources from January to November already surpassed the P2.22-trillion gross domestic borrowings program for the entire year.

Meanwhile, gross foreign borrowings inched up to P583.6 billion as of November from end-October’s P574.4 billion.

Program loans from multilateral lenders and bilateral development partners amounted to P364.6 billion during the 11-month period while project loans reached P32.9 billion.

In a report last week, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (Unescap) said the Philippines was the third-biggest recipient of financial support from multilateral development banks and international financial institutions to fight COVID-19 in the region amounting to $4.3 billion to date.

In Asia-Pacific, only India and Pakistan received bigger financing of $6.4 billion and $4.4 billion, respectively.

The Philippines also raised P118.7 billion from the US dollar-denominated global bonds it issued in May on top of the earlier P67.3 billion in proceeds from its euro bonds sale on February.

This month, the Philippines returned to the offshore commercial market and sold $2.75 billion in dollar bonds across two tenors.

Gross external borrowings had been programmed to reach P785.6 billion by year’s end.