With more loans to fund the response to COVID-19 that flowed during the first full month of lockdown, gross borrowings from the national government in April increased to P262.7 billion by 593 percent year-on-year.
The latest Treasury Bureau data showed that combined gross domestic and external borrowing amounted to a mere P37.9 billion. It happened in the same month last year.
Overseas gross financing amounted to P90.6 billion, including P579 million in project loans and P90.1 billion in program loans.
Treasury data shows that last April ‘s program loans were the highest monthly amount in history. And then, for the whole of 2019, they were higher than the P78.2 billion.
National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon said the program loans in April included the P50.8-billion COVID-19 active response and expenditure support program of the Asian Development Bank and the P3.9-billion emergency assistance for the reconstruction and development of Greater Marawi, as well as the P25.2-billion loan from the World Bank for COVID-19 response and P10.1-billion social welfare development and reform project.
Borrowings in April
Nonetheless, Treasury data showed that gross domestic borrowings reached P172.1 billion in April, exceeding those borrowed from outside sources.
The Treasury released a total of P88.03 billion in bills last April, in addition to P84.07 billion in fixed-rate bonds.
Total gross borrowings hit P919.4 billion at the end of the first four months. The borrowings are P682.1-billion domestic and P237.3-billion foreign. They were already similar to the P1.02-trillion borrowed by the national government for the whole of last year.
Debt Metric
Last month, the Cabinet-level Development Budget Coordination Committee projected the debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio to hit 51.5 percent in 2021 and 52.3 percent in 2022, a further increase from 49.8 percent this year, equivalent to a record P9.6 trillion in debt.
As of end-April, the national government’s debt stock stood at a new high of P8.6 trillion.