The Philippines’ balance of payments (BOP) registered a deficit of $298 million in May 2025, a reversal from the $2 billion surplus recorded in May 2024, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said.
The May deficit reflected the national government’s drawdowns on its foreign currency deposits with the BSP to service external debt obligations.
As a result, the five-month BOP position shifted to a $5.8-billion deficit this year from a $1.6-billion surplus last year.
Preliminary data indicate the year-to-date BOP deficit was largely due to a continued trade in goods deficit. Based on preliminary data from the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) International Merchandise Trade Statistics (IMTS), the trade deficit from January to April 2025 reached $15.91 billion.
This was partly offset by sustained net inflows from personal remittances from overseas Filipinos, government foreign borrowings and foreign portfolio investments, the BSP said.
It said the BOP position mirrored a slight decrease in the gross international reserves (GIR) to $105.2 billion by end-May 2025 from $105.3 billion at end-April 2025.
Despite the modest decline, the GIR level remains a strong external liquidity buffer, sufficient to cover 7.1 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income, the BSP said.
The GIR, which consists of foreign assets held by the BSP primarily in the form of foreign-issued securities, gold and foreign exchange, serves as a key indicator of the country’s ability to manage external shocks.
It covers about 3.3 times the country’s short-term external debt based on residual maturity.
The BSP said the latest GIR level ensures availability of foreign exchange to meet balance of payments financing needs, such as for payment of imports and debt service, in extreme conditions when there are no export earnings or foreign loans.
