THE national government’s debt service bill for November rose 24.55% in November, led by domestic amortization payments, the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) said.

In November, the national government paid P35.64 billion, up from P28.62 billion a year earlier.

Debt service rose 4.96% from P33.96 billion in October.

In the 11 months to November, the debt service bill was P652.5 billion, down 14.71% year on year.

The total is equivalent to 92.68% of the programmed P704.02 billion debt service budget for 2017.

Interest payments made in November totaled P20.58 billion, up 5.25% from a year earlier. 

Domestic payments accounted for P18.28 billion, mostly for maturing Treasury Bonds.

Domestic principal payments amounted to P8.22 billion while P6.84 billion went to paying down foreign principal owed.

The BTr also reported over the weekend that outstanding national government debt was P6.437 trillion at the end of November, down 1% from the end of October.

However, debt was up 5.4% from the first 11 months of 2016.

“The reduction in domestic debt was due to net redemption of government securities amounting to P7.18 billion and diminution of the peso value of onshore dollar bonds amounting to P0.67 billion,” the BTr said.

Domestic debt accounted for P4.208 trillion, down 0.2% month on month, while foreign obligations stood at P2.229 trillion, down 2.5%.

Domestic outstanding debt rose 6.8% year on year, while external debt rose 2.9%.

Dollar notes made up much of the external debt portfolio at P1.199 trillion, followed by P129.68 billion worth of global peso bonds, and P44.74 billion in yen bonds. — Elijah Joseph C. Tubayan

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