MANILA, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines' gross international reserves (GIR) settled at 112.43 billion U.S. dollars at the end of October from 112.71 billion dollars at the end of September, the Philippine central bank said Thursday.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said the latest GIR level represents a more than adequate external liquidity buffer equivalent to 8.1 months' worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
The bank added that the October GIR level is about 4.5 times the country's short-term external debt based on residual maturity.
The month-on-month decrease in the GIR level reflected mainly the national government's net foreign currency withdrawals from its deposits with the BSP to settle its foreign currency debt obligations and pay for its various expenditures, the central bank added. ■