As other countries, first in the developed and then increasingly in the emerging world, followed the US example and made price stabilisation a priority, a global trend towards lower interest rates set in.
The following are among these measures: •  Enhancement of the BSP’s standing peso repo facility by expanding allowable collateral and relaxing valuation on these;  •  Creation of a US dollar repo facility to augment dollar liquidity in the foreign exchange market and ensure the ready availability of credit for imports and other legitimate funding requirements;  •  Increase in the budget for our peso rediscounting facility to P60 billion; and  •  Reduction in the regular reserve requirements on bank deposits and deposit substitutes by two percentage points.