RP suffers $2.34b deficit

RP suffers $2.34b deficit

MANILA (AFP): The Philippines' balance of payments plummeted 178 percent from the previous year to a 2.345 billion-dollar deficit in the seven months to July, figures from the Finance Department showed Thursday.

The plunge was a reversal from the 3.0 billion-dollar surplus in the same period in 1996.

Sources at the department attributed the fall to the widening trade deficit and the outflow of foreign funds following a region-wide currency crisis.

The balance of payments is a system of accounts setting out a country's transactions with the outside world. A deficit or surplus refers in an imbalance in one or more of these accounts and usually reflects the amount a government's foreign exchange reserves have been depleted or increased.