Manila, Philippines —  The country's gross international reserves (GIR) hit a new record high of $49.58 billion as of end-August, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. announced in a press statement on Tuesday.

Gross international reserves (GIR) include BSP's gold reserves, securities invested abroad, foreign exchange cash, mostly in US dollar, and special drawing rights with the International Monetary Fund.

In the first eight months, gold stock totaled $7.06 billion while foreign investments reached $40.92 billion. SDRs and FX, in the meantime, totaled $1.1 billion and $367.8 million.

Unofficially, GIR also includes the central bank's forwards and futures or FX swaps, which amounted to $16.86 billion as of end-July.

In the press release, Tetangco said the preliminary GIR level at end-August 2010 was "due mainly to foreign exchange operations and income from investments abroad of the BSP, and revaluation gains on the BSP’s gold holdings on account of the increase in gold prices in the international market."

"These inflows were partially offset, however, by payments for maturing foreign exchange obligations of the National Government and the BSP, and foreign currency withdrawals by authorized agent banks," he stated.

The current GIR level could cover 9.2 months of imports of goods and payments of services and income. It is also equivalent to 9.5 times the country’s short-term external debt based on original maturity and 5.1 times based on residual maturity.

For the month of August, according to documents, the BSP purchased $793 million of FX, double of what was bought in July of $401 million. The BSP buys FX, mostly US dollar, to jack up reserves and to smooth exchange rate volatility. In the same report, the BSP also sold FX worth $453 million in August, but it did not conduct any FX sales in July.

Ending August, the peso at P45.79 vis-á-vis the US dollar appreciated by 4.4 percent compared with the same period in 2009 at P47.89: $1.

BSP said the peso was showing some strength in previous weeks because investors opted for regional currencies on the back of weak US labor market and manufacturing data.

The continued surge in overseas Filipinos’ remittances, which reached record high in June, also boosted the peso further, said the BSP.

Remittances rose 6.9 percent year-on-year in the first six months to June, at $9.1 billion.