Philippines peso exchange rate forecast 2013

Philippines peso exchange rate forecast 2013, Philippines peso to US Dollar 2013 : The peso closed at 41.05 against the US dollar at the last trading day of 2012, gaining nearly 7 percent since the start of the year. The peso was the second fastest appreciating Asian currency against the dollar last year next only to the Korean won which rose by 7.17 percent.

In Monday's trading, the peso closed at P40.89 to $1. The rise of the peso has made Philippine-made goods more expensive in dollar terms and less competitive in the global market.

With this development in the local bourse, Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said Monday that the Philippine economy will likely hit the high end of its growth rate target in 2012 and would maintain a "high growth" in 2013.

"Hitting the 5-6 percent growth target for 2012 is no big deal, " Balisacan said, adding that the economy was likely to have expanded by about 6.5 percent last year.

For the fourth quarter of 2012, he said the expansion of the gross domestic product (GDP) would definitely be higher than 4.5 percent, which was the minimum required for the Philippines to hit the higher end of the target for 2012.

Analysts here said sustained investors' appetite for blue chips has pushed all the PSE indexes.

"A lot of investors are positive and very optimistic of the nation's prospects this year and some stocks are catching up in terms of valuation," Mark Canizares, head of equities at Manulife Philippines, was quoted by reports as saying.

Monetary authorities have been successful in keeping inflation rate at bay with the December rate at 2.9 percent, bringing the average pace of the price movement to 3.2 percent, within the lower end of the range target of between 3.0 percent and 5.0 percent.

The country's foreign exchange reserves also hit an all-time high of $84.25 billion at the close of 2012, buoyed by the dollar purchases of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the country's central bank, which were meant to temper what could have been a sharp appreciation of the Philippine peso.

The yearend gross international reserves (GIR) were enough to cover a year of the country's import requirements and were nearly six times the combined foreign currency-denominated debts of the government and private entities maturing within a year.

The latest amount of GIR was up by about 12 percent from $75.30 billion in the previous year.

The BSP admitted that it had been buying dollars from the market to prevent a steep rise in the value of the peso against the US dollar.

Officials said that under its policy, the BSP allowed the exchange rate to be generally determined by the market, but intervened through currency trading in cases of significant volatility pressures. They said the sharp and sudden rise or fall of the peso was disruptive to businesses and to the economy.

The appreciation of the local currency has also reduced the peso value of the dollar remittances sent by overseas Filipinos.

Meanwhile, in its latest global report, the Washington D.C. based Institute of International Finance (IIF) said that among emerging economies in Asia, the Philippines will continue to remain second only to that of China this year.

The IIF also said that in three years to 2014, yearly domestic growth of the Philippines would be above 6 percent.

The think tank said that the country's gross domestic product would follow through with a growth rate of 6.8 percent next year after the latest forecast of 6.5 percent for 2012.

In 2014, the IIF predicts that the Philippine economy will grow slower at 6.2 percent, to be overtaken by India and Indonesia for second and third place after China.   "The Philippines stands out for its strong growth this year," the IIF said. "Real GDP was 7.1 percent greater in the third quarter than a year earlier - up from 6.2 percent in the first half, and 3.9 percent for 2011."

The IIF also noted that remittances from overseas Filipino workers reached $17.3 billion in the first nine months of 2012, which was 5.7 percent higher year-on-year. On the local currency, the IIF said that the peso is expected to trade at 40.80 against the US dollar in 2013. The local currency will be much stronger in 2014 when it is expected to trade at a round 40 against the US dollar, the IIF said.

Philippines currency 2013, Philippines economic growth forecast 2013-2014, Philippines stock market forecast 2013, Philippines foreign exchange 2013

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