MANILA, Philippines — The new loans extended by multilateral lenders to buy and deploy COVID-19 vaccines would unlikely burden the Philippines’ debt servicing, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said, even as the national government paid a record P962.47 billion in obligations last year.
The latest Bureau of the Treasury data showed that the amount of debt settled in 2020 exceeded the previous high of P939.22 billion in 2010.
The majority of last year’s debt service was for amortization, amounting to P582.05 billion, although the government’s primary payments in 2010 and 2011 were bigger and exceeded P600 billion each.
Domestic amortization payments amounted to P440.4 billion, w…
Keep on reading: ADB: PH debt levels ‘sustainable’ despite more loans for vaccines