MANILA, Philippines — The country's balance of payments (BOP) surplus at the end of 2011 reached $10.179 billion lower than end-2010's $14.308 billion, data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed Thursday.

BSP Deputy Governor Diwa C. Guinigundo said BOP excess reserves declined mainly due to risk aversion sentiments of investors due to concerns over the Euro zone debt problems.

For the month of December alone, the BOP was a deficit of $114 million compared to November's $364 million surplus and December 2010's surplus of $1.226 billion.

"There was a deficit (in December) that's the reason why the BOP came down. (The) developments in Europe which led to increase in risk aversion affected the numbers, aside from the normal revaluation of gold so you have the shortfall in the accounts," said Guinigundo.

For the past year, the BSP recorded the highest BOP surplus for the month of August when it reached $2.72 billion.

The forecast for BOP for 2012 is lower at $2.8 billion from an original forecast of $4.4 billion set in April 2011.Guinigundo said the BOP continues to reflect the Philippines’ healthy external trade and foreign exchange buffers which as of end-December totaled $76 billion.

Both economic indicators surpassed 2011 forecasts, which were originally $70 billion for gross international reserves and $6.7 billion for BOP.

Guinigundo remains confident that the foreign reserves’ early gains would continue to "serve as critical buffers" as the country copes with external factors.

The BOP, which is composed of foreign direct investments and foreign portfolio investments or hot money as well as export receipts and remittances from overseas Filipinos, have been accumulating excess amounts from the surge in inflows to emerging markets in the wake of the US and Europe’s debt refinancing problems.