Gov’t pays in advance $270 million debts

04/19/2008

A total of $270.2 million worth of debts have been paid in advance by the government until the end of last February, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) data showed.

The BSP said the prepayment was done by the private sector for their medium and long term external borrowings.

Last year, the peso’s strengthening against the greenback by more than 18 percent enabled both the

public and the private sectors to prepay a total of $2.995-billion external loans.

In particular, the public sector redeemed $1.12 billion of loans — $0.805 billion of which was made by the BSP while the remaining $0.126 billion was made by the national government (NG).

On the other hand, the private sector prepaid a total of $1.875 billion.

Last year’s prepayments by the public and private sectors are, however, lower than the unprecedented $4.4 billion in 2006 — achieved due to the appreciation of the local currency.

Both the government and the private sector grabbed the

chance to prepay debt because of the strengthening of the local unit, primarily due to surge of inflows from remittances of overseas Filipino workers, as well as foreign investments.

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