The Philippine government's debt servicing in first four-months of the year grew 14 percent to P365.1 billion from P320.2 billion in the same period last year, according to the Bureau of Treasury.

Data from the bureau showed the bulk of the debt service consisted of principal payments amounting to P240.55 billion, a 25 percent rise from P198.02 billion, while interest payments up by 2 percent year-on-year to P124.55 billion from P122.14 billion.

Of the P240.55 billion principal payments, P156.12 billion was paid to domestic creditors, while P84.44 billion was paid to foreign creditors.

About P68.04 billion of the total P124.55 billion interest payments during the period, meanwhile was paid to domestic creditors and the remaining P56.5 billion was paid to offshore creditors.

Debt servicing refers to payments of both interest and principal. The debt service burden excludes actual outflows such as rescheduling or refinancing of existing debt and conversion of debt to equity.

In April, the government's debt service declined by 11 percent to P25.77 billion from P28.64 billion in the same period last year.

Last year, debt-service payments inched up by 2 percent to P622.3 billion from P612.7 billion in the  previous year.

Meanwhile, government's borrowings in April increased 16 percent from the same period last year due to the sale of $500 million fixed-rate multi-currency retail treasury bonds (RTBs).

Total exports in March 2010 also rose by 43.8 percent to $4.18 billion from $2.90 billion. The balance of trade in goods in March 2010 recorded a deficit of $362.00 million, lower than last year's recorded deficit of $363.00 million.

On a month-on-month basis, total imports in March 2010 grew by 16.4 percent from $3.904 billion recorded in February 2010.

Imports of electronic products in March 2010 amounted to $1.5 billion, up by 35.4 percent over last year's figure of $1.11 billion.

On a monthly basis, imports of electronics grew by 5.0 percent from $1.43 billion recorded in February 2010. Among the major groups of electronic products, semiconductors having the biggest share of 25.2 percent, climbed by 38.7 percent to $1.14 billion from $823.67 million.

Imports of mineral fuels in March 2010 ranked second with 16.8 percent share and posted a positive growth of 63.4 percent to $762.96 million over the previous year's level of $466.90 million.

Imports of cereals surged by 68.9 percent from its previous year level of $254.04 million. Transport equipment, contributing 5.2 percent to the total import bill, was the country's fourth top import for the month with payments placed at $237.53 million from last year's $162.07 million, up by 46.6 percent.

Industrial machinery and equipment recorded $202.30 million worth of imports, higher by 57.4 percent from its year ago level of $128.50 million.

Tan-Torres, meanwhile, said the tax bureau will seek P6.5 billion of unpaid value-added taxes from toll road operators dating from 2007.

The BIR projects P1.3 billion a year of VAT from toll road operators.

For five consecutive months since December 2009, the BIR has able to attain its tax collection target.
In April alone, tax collection reached P87.1 billion, beating its goal by P900 million due to efficiency in tax collection and economic recovery.

April is traditionally the biggest tax collection month for the BIR because the deadline for annual taxes falls on that month.

But as early as now, the BIR is not confident that it will the P440.2 billion revenue target for the second-semester of the year due to several tax-eroding measures that Congress had passed.

Tan-Torres anticipated that revenue impact of Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) law, Personal Equity Retirement Account (PERA) law, and the measure exempting senior citizens from paying consumption tax will be realized in the second-half.

Tan-Torres is now hoping that the country's economic expansion this year can compensate for the revenue losses from these three tax-eroding measures.

Total gross financing last month went up by P4.9 billion to P36.6 billion from P31.7 billion in the same month in 2009, which means less loan repayments has been made by the national government for the month.

The government borrowed more domestically at P35.3 billion from P26.6 billion in the same period last year, which is mainly composed of multi-currency retail treasury bonds at P22.3 billion and P12.9  billion T-bonds.

Total external financing during the month, meanwhile, amounted to P2.7 billion from P5 billion last year.