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Overall balance of payments (BOP) posted a surplus of $754 million in March, a reversal from the $73 million BOP deficit recorded in the same month last year, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipina said Tuesday.

The BOP surplus reflected inflows arising mainly from the National Government’s (NG) net foreign currency deposits with the BSP and BSP’s income from its investments abroad.

The BOP surplus in March brought the cumulative BOP to a surplus of $495 million in the first quarter of the year from a deficit of $259 million in the first two months of the year.

This level is also a reversal from the $2.84 billion deficit recorded in the same period a year ago. Based on preliminary data, the cumulative BOP surplus reflected inflows such as from personal remittances, net foreign borrowings by the National Government, and foreign direct and portfolio investments.

Gross international reserves (GIR) declined slightly by 0.5 percent to $107.31 billion as of end-March from $107.8 billion as of end-February.

Nonetheless, the latest GIR level represents a more than adequate external liquidity buffer equivalent to 9.5 months’ worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.

It is also about 7.1 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 5.3 times based on residual maturity. BSP