MANILA: The Philippine central bank plans to release more rules as early as this month aimed at liberalising access to foreign exchange from banks and allow for more outflows to dampen the peso's rapid appreciation.
The central bank has said stronger fund inflows were likely after Fitch Ratings raised the country's credit rating to investment grade from junk status last week.
Amando Tetangco, governor of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, said the expectation of more inflows reduces pressure on monetary authorities to raise rates in the near term.
"We will be coming up with a sixth wave of FX liberalisation measures soon, perhaps even as early as April," Tetangco said in an email reply to Reuters late on Monday.
"As in the previous waves of FX liberalisation, the measures are expected to create demand for dollars, and help instill in market participants that the FX rate is not a 'one-way' bet," he said, adding the measures were expected to also improve the central bank's monitoring of transactions.
He gave no further details.
In an interview with Reuters in February, Tetangco said that the central bank was considering allowing companies to buy dollars from the banking system to pay off unregistered foreign loans, a practice allowed for a limited period of three months last year. Tetangco had said the practice could be permitted again for an extended period.
The peso has extended its gains this year after surging nearly 7 percent in 2012, driven by strong fund inflows and remittances from Filipinos working and living overseas.
The peso's strength has dampened inflation, allowing the monetary authority to keep its policy rate at a record low.
But it creates complications for the central bank which has run low on funds for market intervention.
It has resorting to cutting rates on its special deposit account (SDA) facility, which attracted a fresh record volume of 1.95 trillion pesos ($47.8 billion) as of March 15.
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