Duterte-signed peso notes out this week

New generation cur­rency (NGC) bank notes that have the signature of Presi­dent Duterte will start circulat­ing this week.

“The notes are ready. The first batch is expected to be released next week after completing the approval and release procedures with the banks,” Bangko Sentral ng Pili­pinas (BSP) Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said.

Tetangco said all the paper bills, namely P20, P50, P100, P200, P500 and P1,000, with the signature of the new pres­ident would be issued next week.

He, however, declined to disclose the number of bank notes with Duterte’s signature that will be issued starting next week.

Duterte’s official term as the country’s Chief Executive started on June 30, 2016.

An economist of ING Bank, meanwhile, forecasts the peso to sustain its depreciation until the first quarter of 2017, partly due to rising imports.

Imports remain generally on a positive growth because of rising domestic demand, with the October figure up by 5.9 percent year-on-year. This development requires high­er dollar requirement, thus, weakening the local currency.

In a research note, ING Bank Asia chief economist Tim Condon said the weaker peso is also impacted by the “re-pricing for the negative swing in the current account balance.”

“ING’s first quarter 2017 USD-PHP forecast is 49.70,” he said.

The Philippines has been posting current account sur­pluses for more than a decade now due to dollar inflows from remittances, the business pro­cess outsourcing (BPO) sec­tor and foreign investments, among others.

However, growth of re­mittances has slowed down to around four percent from about eight to 10 percent in re­cent years.

As of September 2016, growth of cash remittances rose by 4.8 percent to $22.11 billion.

The country’s current ac­count surplus declined by 85.2 percent in the first half of 2016 to about $800 million.

The BSP’s current ac­count assumption for this year is a surplus of $5.8 billion.