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GROSS loans from the national government from January to August have risen to P2.47 trillion, the highest in 16 years.
The latest data from the Treasury Office showed that the late-August figure exceeded the government’s annual debt levels since 2004.
The amount the government borrowed in eight months is already equivalent to more than 80 percent of the P3 trillion loan program that economic managers have set up this year to cover the 2020 budget deficit and fund their spending needs in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. .
From just P916.271 million in the same period last year, gross government loans at the end of August this year increased 169.6 percent.
This, given that gross government loans for the month of August alone increased eightfold to P612.913 billion from just P76.524 billion in the same month of 2019 after the record sale of P516.3 billion in Retail Treasury Bonds (RTB).
From January to August this year, 79 percent of the loans were obtained locally and the remaining 21 percent from foreign sources.
Gross domestic loans have soared to P1.96 trillion over the eight-month period, triple the P640.725 billion last year.
The government was able to obtain loans mainly from the local debt market through the issuance of RTB (P827.107 billion), Fixed Rate Treasury Bonds (P447.859 billion), Treasury Bills (P385.297 billion) and internal loans under the buyback. agreement with Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (P300 billion).
On the other hand, gross external loans for the same period rose to P509.691 billion, almost an 85 percent increase from P275.546 billion last year.
The government borrowed money from foreign lenders through program loans (P306.536 billion), global bonds (P118.735 billion), Euro Bonds (P67.329 billion), and project loans (P17,091 billion). millions).
For the month of August, gross domestic loans multiplied by 19 to P584,374 from just P29,670 billion in the same month last year.
Meanwhile, gross external borrowing for the month plunged 39.1 percent to P28.539 billion from P46.854 billion in August 2019.
The government has yet to release data on the national government’s outstanding debt as of the end of August, but in late July, the country’s debt stock soared 17.4 percent to P9.16 trillion from P7.8 trillion in the same period of the previous year.
The Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) also expects the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio this year to rise to 53.91 percent of GDP, a level it has not seen in more than a decade, since a record low of the 39.6 percent of GDP last year. .
By the end of this year, the national government expects its outstanding debt to reach P10.16 trillion, 31.42 percent more than last year’s amount.
As tax collections have fallen amid the pandemic, the DBCC projects that the country’s budget deficit will double to more than 9.6 percent of GDP or P1.815 trillion from just 3.4 percent of GDP or P660.2 billion last year.
