The Philippines has slashed its foreign and domestic borrowings by 12 percent next year as it hopes to end an era of budget deficits that spanned over a decade, reports said on Monday.
Data from the Philippine Department of Finance showed that the government would borrow 346.18 billion pesos (7.69 billion dollars) from both foreign and domestic creditors next year or 47.83 billion pesos (1.06 billion dollars) lower than the programmed borrowing this year, Philippine GMA TV reported.
The government intends to borrow 125.43 billion pesos (2.79 dollars) from foreign creditors in 2008 or 3.43 percent lower than the programmed foreign borrowing this year.
Of the total amount, about 48 billion pesos (1.07 billion dollars) would be raised from foreign commercial borrowings or through the issuance of global bonds while 77.43 billion pesos (1. 72 billion dollars) would come from official development assistance (ODA) loans from multilateral lending agencies.
The Philippines intends to avail of cheaper ODA loans from lending agencies led by Asian Development Bank, World Bank and Japan Bank for International Cooperation.
On the other hand, the government slashed its domestic borrowing program by 16.42 percent to 220.75 billion pesos (4.91 billion dollars) next year from 264.12 billion pesos (5.87 billion dollars) this year.
Next year's program would translate to a borrowing mix of 64 percent domestic and 36 percent foreign from this year's program of 67 percent domestic and 33 percent foreign.
Furthermore, payments of both domestic and foreign debt would increase by 9.26 percent to 328.34 billion pesos (7.30 billion dollars) next year from 300.5 billion pesos (6.68 billion dollars).
In all the government would borrow 17.84 billion pesos (396 million dollars) to finance the budget deficit from 84.51 billion pesos (1.88 billion dollars). The Philippines relies heavily on domestic and foreign borrowings to pay its maturing debt and at the same time finance the budget shortfall.
The administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is at the tail-end of its fiscal consolidation program aimed at achieving a balanced budget by 2008 or two years ahead of the original schedule of 2010 under the Medium Term Philippine Development Plan.
The government hopes to trim the budget deficit to 63 billion pesos (1.40 billion dollars) or 0.9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) this year from an eight-year low of 64.8 billion pesos (1.44 billion dollars) or one percent of GDP last year.
Source: Xinhua
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article