Higher maturing bonds and loans widen BoP deficits but the strong inflows from migrant workers’ remittances and portfolio investments improved the BoP.

In the meantime, year-to-date the BoP is still a surplus of $ 1.844 billion from $ 2.121 billion in March. Based on Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas data, the April deficit was the first for the year, from a small surplus of $ 89 million the previous month.

The BoP represents the country’s economic transactions with the rest of the world. It has been getting its support mostly from borrowings, dollar remittances from overseas Filipino workers, foreign investments and export earnings.

Besides dipping dollars in the gross international reserves to pay for interest payments, the National Government borrows from abroad. This year the dollar requirement is $ 3.1 billion. Total maturing loans is estimated at $ 4 billion.

The BSP is revising the way they compute BoP and GIR according to the International Accounting Standards. The BSP said the release calendar would resume its normal schedule after the release of the May 2006 figures.

The central bank explains that it is "backtracking its records from yearend 2005 onward to effect the requirements of the IAS, particularly with regard to the adoption of mark-to-market valuation."

In the meantime, BSP officials said BoP would likely close the year at a surplus of more than $ 2 billion, higher than projection of $ 900 million. Last year the BoP ended with an excess of $ 2.1 billion.

As of April, GIR rose 25 percent to $ 20.906 billion from $ 20.844 billion in March. The BSP said the current GIR level is adequate to cover about 4.4 months of imports of goods and payments of services and income. This level is also equivalent to 3.3 times the country’s short-term debt based on original maturity and 1.7 times based on residual maturity.