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By Chino S. Leyco Reporter
BUOYED by strong remittances of
overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and foreign investments, the
country’s dollar surplus last year hit a fresh record, the Bangko
Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said Wednesday.
BSP Gov. Amando M. Tetangco Jr.
said the country’s balance of payments (BOP) last December hit a
surplus of $784 million, reversing the prior month’s deficit of
$67 million. This brought the full-year external payments position
to a surplus of $8.6 billion, higher than the central bank’s
forecast for 2007.
“The surplus was achieved as a
result of continued strong overseas Filipinos’ remittances, net
inflows of foreign direct and portfolio investments, and investment
income of the BSP as well as steady stream of export earnings,”
Tetangco said.
“At the end of the year, there
were still significant amounts of scheduled payments by the national
government, government owned corporations and the private sector.
But these payments were already factored in to our earlier pro-jections,”
Tetangco said.
He had said the country’s BOP
surplus is likely to range from $8 billion to $8.5-billion surplus
last year, or more than twice the $3.8-billion surplus in 2006.
Earlier, the BSP said the
country’s dollar reserves hit an all-time high in 2007, adding the
year-end figure exceeded its full-year forecast.
The country’s gross
international reserves (GIR) posted a historic high of $33.7 billion
last year, higher than the $33.0 to $33.5 billion forecast. Last
year’s figure likewise was $10.7 billion higher than the $22.966
billion in 2006.
For this year, the BSP projects
the GIR to reach $35 to $37 billion.
OFW remittances at end-No-vember
reached $13.1 billion, or 14.1 percent higher than the $11.4 billion
the previous year.
Meanwhile, foreign interest in
peso-denominated assets such as shares of listed firms and govern-ment
debt papers surged in 2007, even as investments meant to establish
or expand businesses in the country are poised to fall short of
expectations.
Net foreign portfolio invest-ments
jumped by 35 percent to $3.5 billion in 2007 compared with $2.6
billion in 2006 but were below the full year forecast of $3.7
billion due to risk aversion brought about by the US sub prime
housing crisis.
At end-October, foreign direct
investments went down, with the BSP blaming this on inter-company
loan settlement of local subsidiaries to foreign parent companies.
Tetangco said the 10-month total
dropped by 4.3 percent to $1.851 billion last year from $1.934
billion in the same period in 2006.
This was due to a 114.9 percent
decline last October, with $51 million in outflows as against $44
million inflows in September.
At the Philippine Dealing System,
the peso slid to 40.78 against the dollar Wednesday, weaker
com-pared with Tuesday’s 40.60 finish. Trading volume reached
$738.3 million.
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