Preliminary data showed that the Philippines' gross international reserves (GIR) rose to 85.02 billion US dollars as of end-May 2019 from 83.88 billion US dollars as of end-April 2019, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Benjamin Diokno said on Friday.

At this level, Diokno said GIR serves as an ample external liquidity buffer and is equivalent to 7.5 months' worth of imports of goods and payments of services and primary income.

"It is also equivalent to 5.1 times the country's short-term external debt based on original maturity and 3.6 times based on residual maturity," Diokno said in a statement.

Diokno said the month-on-month increase in the GIR level was due mainly to inflows arising from the national government's net foreign currency deposits, BSP's foreign exchange operations and income from its investments abroad, and revaluation gains from the BSP's gold holdings, resulting from the increase in the price of gold in the international market.

However, Diokno said the increase in reserves was tempered partially by payments made by the NG for servicing its foreign exchange obligations.

Net international reserves, which refers to the difference between the BSP's GIR and total short-term liabilities, also increased by 1.14 billion US dollars to 85 billion US dollars as of end-May 2019 from the end-April 2019 level of 83.86 billion US dollars.