By Lee Chipongian
Desk, The Malaya Business News
The Philippines’ balance of payments (BOP) reversed to a surplus position in June to $226 million, the first monthly surplus for this year, central bank data released on Friday showed.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said the government’s foreign currency deposits and income from investments helped the BOP return to a surplus.
The June BOP also indicated a rebound from the $155 million shortfall recorded in the same month last year.
For the January to June 2025 period, the country’s BOP remained in deficit at $5.588 billion. This was a reversal of the $1.441 billion surplus in the same period last year.
The deficit was due to the Philippines’ continued trade in goods deficit, but which was “partly offset by the sustained net inflows from personal remittances from overseas Filipinos, foreign borrowings by the NG (national government), and foreign portfolio investments,” the BSP said.
Meanwhile, the final gross international reserves (GIR) as of end-June stood at $106 billion, higher than the $105.3 billion reported on July 7. The BSP reports the GIR twice in a month, as a preliminary and final number along with the BOP release.
The BSP said the GIR at this level is still considered a “robust external liquidity buffer”. It is equivalent to 7.2 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income, and about 3.4 times the country’s short-term external debt based on residual maturity.
The BOP is a summary of the economic transactions of a country with the rest of the world for a specific period.
