MANILA, March 7 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines' gross international reserves (GIR) settled at 102.7 billion U.S. dollars at the end of February from 103.3 billion dollars by January, the Philippine central bank said on Thursday.
The slight month-on-month decrease in the GIR level reflected mainly the national government's payments of its foreign currency debt obligations, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said in a press release.
The BSP said the latest GIR level represents a more than adequate external liquidity buffer equivalent to 7.7 months' worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.
The central bank added that the February GIR level is about six times the country's short-term external debt based on original maturity and 3.9 times based on residual maturity.
