Illustrative image (Photo: philstar.com)Singapore (VNA) - The Philippine government is planning to borrowmore from domestic and foreign markets to finance the budget deficit this year,due to the economic slowdown triggered by the COVID-19 outbreak.
Secretary of the Department of Finance Carlos Dominguez said the government ismulling the possibility of increasing its borrowing plan for the year as theprojected budget shortfall could reach 3.6 percent of gross domestic productinstead of the programmed 3.2 percent of GDP, if the COVID-19 threat lingersuntil the middle of the year, reported Philstar.com.
Dominguez said for this year, the government is planning to ramp upits borrowings to 1.4 trillion peso (about 27.46 billion USD), 17.6 percenthigher than that of last year. Of the total amount, about 75 percent will comefrom local sources, while the remaining 25 percent will come from foreigncreditors.
The total of foreign commercial borrowings through issuing bonds in US dollar,euro, Japanese yen and Chinese yuan is estimated to be 3.5 billion USD, whileprogramme loans, project loans and official development assistance (ODA)sources would be about 3 billion USD.
According to Dominguez, government revenues could decline by 91 billionpeso (1.78 billion USD)./.
VNA
