Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said the country’s balance of payments’ surplus and mild inflation are boosting the peso and keeping it among Asia’s strongest currencies.
The peso closed at 48.48 against the US dollar Tuesday. Data showed that compared to the Jan. 2 rate of P50.8 per dollar, the peso appreciated by 4.5 percent against the greenback.
Dominguez said the confidence in the Philippine economy and the local currency were also among the factors that raised the value of the peso.
The drop in the country’s imports compared exports during the strict lockdown imposed by the government to contain the spread of COVID-19 led to favorable BOP position, which contributed to the strong performance of the peso, Dominguez said during the recent virtual “Captain Speak” series of Maybank’s Invest ASEAN Conference 2020.
“Because we were able to tap the foreign loans first from the multilateral agencies and then later from the bond market at very favorable terms, we have increased the size of our foreign reserves. In fact our foreign reserves now is at roughly $98 billion. This is actually larger than our total foreign debt,” Dominguez said.
