|
MANILA-
Surge of inflows continue to strengthen the Philippine peso
as it closed to 45.25 against the greenbuck in yesterday's
trading, the new seven-year high after Septemper 2000.
Closing
was better than Monday's 45.55 finish.
It
opened at 45.45 and being traded between 45.25 and 45.245.
Total
volume of transactions for the day reached $ 626.5 million,
lower than the previous day's $ 649 million.
Traders
attributed the strength of the currency to the strong remittances
inflows and investments.
The
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on Monday said the country's
balance of payment (BOP) position continue to be on the surplus
after reaching US$ 834 million in June alone.
The
June BOP figure brought to US$ 3.2 billion the first six month's
BOP position, higher than the central bank's US$ 2.4 billion
to $ 2.9 billion full-year forecast.
BSP
Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said "continued strong foreign
exchange inflows in the first six months came in the form
mainly of overseas Filipino workers remittances, merchandise
exports, foreign investments and investment income of the
BSP."
Remittances
of Filipinos abroad reached US$ 5.9 billion in May, the 13th
consecutive months that it breached the billion-level mark.
Net
foreign investments, as of last June 15, totaled to US$ 1.79
billion while foreign direct investments (FDI) as of April
this year totaled to US$ 754 million.
On
the other hand, BSP prepaid a total of US$ 805 million as
of last April.
"The
surplus was achieved even with debt servicing that included
debt prepayments," Tetangco added.
BOP
is the sum of economic transactions of an economy's residents
with the rest of the world and composed of the country's current
account or the aggregate balance of goods, services, and transfers;
capital and financial accounts; and other BOP accounts.
The
central bank initially set a BOP goal of US$ 1.6 billion surplus
this year, lower than the US$ 3.769 billion actual surplus
last year.
But
it was revised to US$ 2 billion then to US$ 2.4 billion to
$ 2.9 billion due to continuous surge of inflows.
|
