The Philippines: BSP grants another PHP540B loan to national government

  • The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has granted the government a new loan of PHP540bn to augment its budgetary needs as the coronavirus pandemic remains to be in effect.
  • BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno on 6 Jan 21 said the Monetary Board granted the advance credit on 28 Dec 20.
  • “The government needs it. Because of COVID-19, revenues went down and are hard to come by, but, at the same time, there are huge expenditure demands on the part of the national government,” he said.
  • “In the meantime that they do not have the taxes and the cash to pay for the COVID-related programs then we lent them PHP540bn,” Diokno added. Diokno said the loan will have zero interest.
  • This is the second time the BSP has agreed to lend the government PHP540bn since it approved a loan request for the same amount in Oct 20.
  • Diokno added that the BSP has also remitted to the national delivery a dividend of PHP40.5bn, which he said, is about 30% of the total dividends of the whole government corporations.
  • In Mar 20, BSP unveiled a massive stimulus program for the national government’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic, saying it would lend as much as PHP300bn to the Bureau of the Treasury for this purpose.

External Link : https://business.inquirer.net/315267/bsp-grants-another-p540b-loan-to-natl-govt-for-covid-19-response

7-Jan-2021