MANILA, June 11 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines' gross international reserves (GIR) level dipped to 106.98 billion U.S. dollars at the end of May from 107.71 billion U.S. dollars a month earlier, the Philippine central bank said on Friday.

"The latest GIR level represents a more than adequate external liquidity buffer equivalent to 12.2 months' worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income," the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said in a statement.

Moreover, the BSP said the May GIR is also about 7.4 times the country's short-term external debt based on original maturity and 5.1 times based on residual maturity.

The BSP said the month-on-month decrease in the GIR level reflected outflows mainly from the foreign currency withdrawals of the national government from its deposits with the BSP to pay its foreign currency debt obligations and various expenditures.

"These outflows were partly offset, however, by the inflows from the BSP's foreign exchange operations and income from its investments abroad, and an upward adjustment in the value of the BSP's gold holdings due to the increase in the price of gold in the international market," the BSP added.

Similarly, the BSP said the net international reserves (NIR), which refers to the difference between the BSP's GIR and total short-term liabilities, decreased to 106.96 billion U.S. dollars at the end of May from the level of 107.69 billion U.S. dollars at the end of April. Enditem

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