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MANILA – Businesses took out $1.713 billion in foreign currency loans in the first quarter of this year, adding nearly a third more to the amount of outstanding loans in the same period last year.
In a statement, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said foreign currency deposit units of banks had $7.240 billion in outstanding loans at end-March, up from $5.527 billion in the same three-month period in 2011.
This year’s first-quarter loans also increased 2.5 percent from the $7.1 billion in the fourth quarter of last year.
The share of short-term loans – those maturing in one year or less – rose to 39.5 percent this year from 37.3 percent last year.
The bulk of the outstanding loans were owed by the private sector at 80.8 percent, up from 76.8 percent in 2011.
With FCDU deposit liabilities rising at a slower pace of 3.5 percent year-on-year, the loans-to-deposits ratio increased to nearly 29 percent this year from 22.4 percent in 2011.
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