MANILA, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines' outstanding debt hit record high of 7.104 trillion pesos (131.498 billion U.S. dollars) in the first eight months of 2018 on the back of high foreign borrowings amid the issuance of yen-dominated debt bonds.
Data from the Bureau of Treasury (BTr) released on Friday showed the total outstanding debt rose by 10.5 percent from 6.432 trillion pesos (119.721 billion U.S. dollars) in the same period in 2017.
Month-on-month, the total obligations widened by 0.86 percent from 7.04 trillion pesos (130.287 billion U.S. dollars) in end-July, the BTr said.
The BTr said foreign debt grew by 3.6 percent at 2.531 trillion pesos (46.850 billion U.S. dollars) while domestic debt declined by 0.6 percent to 4.573 trillion pesos (84.657 billion U.S. dollars).
"The growth in external debt was due to net availment of foreign loans amounting to 72.3 billion pesos (1.338 billion U.S. dollars), including the issuance of Samurai bonds. Currency fluctuations on both dollar and third-currency denominated debt added 14.48 billion pesos (268.034 million U.S. dollars) and 1.1 billion pesos (20.364 U.S. dollars), respectively," the BTR said.
Last month, the government raised 154.2 billion Japanese yen or around 74.4 billion pesos (1.377 billion U.S. dollars) from Samurai bonds in three tenors.
The BTr said the peso appreciated from 53.160 pesos to 1 U.S. dollar as of end-July to 53.475 pesos to 1 U.S. dollars as of end-August.
Foreign debt accounted for 35.6 percent of the total outstanding liabilities in end-August, while domestic borrowings contributed 64.37 percent, the BTr added.
