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DEBT payments by the national government declined
January due to lower interest rates and the rapid appreciation of
the peso, the Bureau of Treasury data showed.
The national government’s
debt servicing reached P41.784 billion, or P9.543 billion lower than
the P51.325 billion paid out a year ago. Debt servicing reached
P614.069 billion last year, higher than projected P613.152 billion
for the period.
Debt servicing refers to
payments of both interest and principal. The debt service burden
excludes rescheduling or refinancing of existing debt and conversion
of debt to equity.
Interest payments dropped
by P2.252 billion to P30.048 billion in January from P32.3 billion a
year ago.
Of the total, domestic and
foreign interest payments reached P14.938 billion and P17.362
billion, respectively.
Payment of principal,
likewise, significantly declined by P7.291 billion to P11.736
billion in January from P19.027 billion a year before.
The lower-than-expected
interest rates meant the government would spend less on debt
servicing, both for domestic and foreign loans, while the
appreciation of the peso trimmed the government’s foreign-currency
denominated debt in peso terms.
In January, total
disbursements amounted to P100.9 billion, or 1.4 percent lower
compared with the 102.4 billion in the same period last year, as
interest payments likewise dropped 7 percent to P30 billion from
P32.3 billion year on year.
This year the national
government has programmed a P1.23 trillion budget. And finance
department officials said the government is still still with its
original balanced-budget programmed this year.
The peso averaged 40.65
against the dollar in January year on year, and has been one of the
strongest Asian currencies since last year.
--Chino S. Leyco
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