MANILA, Philippines — The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) only has plans to print the 20-piso and 50-piso New Generation Currency (NGC) banknotes while the higher-denominated notes or 100-piso and above will still be printed by foreign companies.

BSP Deputy Governor Juan de Zuñiga Jr., however, said that once the P1.8-billion new banknotes printer has completed its commissioning this month, the BSP can start programming the printing of higher bills.

Zuñiga said the BSP’s existing printers at its Quezon City-based Security Plant Complex only have the capacity to print the 20-piso and 50-piso NGCs, on top of the New Design Series (NDS) or the “old” banknotes printed and circulated before the NGCs were introduced.

“Once the superline printer is up and running, we can program the printing of the 100-piso notes,” said Zuñiga.

The NGC banknotes, named one of the “Best New Banknote Series” in 2011, was first released in December 2010 and printed by French banknotes printer Oberthur Technologies. Oberthur still prints all six denominations of the NGC.

In the meantime the old banknote series or NDS will continue to be printed until 2013 since there are still stocks of paper and ink at SPC.

For this year, the SPC will print one billion pieces of NDS and supposedly, another one billion pieces of lower-denominated NGCs. The 500-piso and 1,000-piso will still be outsourced to foreign printers.

In the next two years or until 2013, the BSP will continue to circulate both NGC and NDS. The call for fully replacing NDS is expected to be made by the end of next year.

The central bank’s Monetary Board approved the acquisition of one complete line banknote printing and finishing equipment last March and awarded the contract to Komori Corp. of Japan.