MANILA, Philippines — More dollars continued to flow out of the country than the level of inflows, resulting in a wider balance of payments (BOP) deficit of $270 million in April, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported yesterday.

The BSP said last month’s BOP shortfall was a reversal of the $917 million surplus recorded in April last year and was higher than the $266 million deficit incurred in March.

As a result, the country’s BOP deficit ballooned to $1.5 billion in the first four months from only $78 million in the same period last year due to the widening merchandise trade deficit for the first quarter of the year.

BSP officer-in-charge Diwa Guinigundo said the deficit in the first four months continue to exceed the projected full-year BOP shortfall of $1 billion.

“Our projection for 2018 shows a small BOP deficit of about $1 billion. This is premised on the recovery of exports and well sustained increase in imports, particularly of capital equipment,” Guinigundo said.

The BOP is the difference in total values between payments into and out of a country over a period. A deficit means more foreign exchange flows out of the country to pay for the importation of more goods, services and capital than what flows in from exports.

The central bank said the strong outlfows in April stemmed mainly from payments made by the national government for its maturing foreign exchange obligations, as well as the foreign exchange operations of the BSP.

The outflows, the BSP added, were partially offset by income from the central bank’s investments abroad and net foreign currency deposits of the national government.

Based on a report from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the country’s trade gap surged by nearly 42 percent to $8.66 billion in the first quarter from $6.1 billion in the same quarter last year as import growth continued to outpace that of exports.

The economy grew faster at 6.8 percent in the first quarter from 6.5 percent in the fourth quarter last year.

“Now to the extent that the economy continues to grow there is always that incentive for residents to continue investing abroad and to continue paying back their obligations including prepayments,” Guinigundo said.