SUMMARY
This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.
MANILA, Philippines – The ratio of the country’s debt to gross domestic product (GDP) continued its downtrend as it stood at 39.2% in 2013, lower than the 40.6% registered in 2012, data from the Department of Finance showed.
“This continuing trend of decreasing GG [general government] debt-to-GDP ratio shows government will to ensure sustained fiscal space throughout the medium term,” the DOF in a statement on Friday, May 2.
It said that in 2009, or before the Aquino administration, the debt-to-GDP ratio was 44.3%.
General government debt includes the outstanding debt of the national government, the Central Bank Board of Liquidators (CB-BOL), social security institutions (SSIs) and LGUs, less intra-sector holdings of government securities including those held by the Bond Sinking Fund (BSF).
The general government debt is used by to assess the creditworthiness of sovereigns.
In nominal terms, the general government debt amounted to P4.529 trillion in 2013, from P4.288 trillion in 2012.
The DOF attributed the decrease in government debt to ongoing fiscal consolidation – the deficit-to-GDP ratio was at 1.3% – and “robust economic expansion” with GDP growth at 7.2% in 2013.
The DOF said the government also “took advantage of broadly favorable domestic funding conditions in 2013 to re-denominate away from foreign currency debt.”
It said that of the P554.7 billion gross borrowing for 2103, 94% was sourced from the domestic market and the remaining 6% were concessional foreign loans from development partners.
“This helped reduce the foreign debt component of NG debt to just P1,947.7 billion or 34.3% of the total outstanding NG debt,” the DOF said.
It said that lower local government debt – P71 billion in 2013 from P73.4 billion in 2012 – also helped bring down the ratio, and hat the intra-sector debt holdings of local government were trimmed down to P0.3 billion in 2013 from P3.1 billion in 2012.
The DOF also said that the combined investment in government securities of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) and the Social Security System (SSS) rose to P474.6 billion in 2013 from P453.7 billion in 2012. – Rappler.com
Add a comment
How does this make you feel?
There are no comments yet. Add your comment to start the conversation.