Government selling P30-billion retail T-bonds

MANILA, Philippines — The government is set to raise at least P30 billion in new money through the issuance of three-year retail Treasury bonds (RTBs) to the general investing public, the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) announced yesterday.

In a notice posted in its website, the BTr said the securities maturing in 2021 will be offered from May 30 to June 9. The issuance of the RTBs will be on June 13.

Small investors may participate in the offering at minimum denominations of P5,000 and integral multiples thereof.

Government securities eligible dealers, on the other hand, will be allowed to submit a maximum of 10 bids at different rates capped at P10 billion per bid during the price-setting auction on May 30.

Earlier, National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon said the government wants to issue RTBs to capture the liquidity in the financial market, which was projected to expand with the settlement of P130 billion in maturities last May 23.

RTBs form part of the government’s funding program. This would be the 21st RTB offering of the Philippine government and the first within the year.

The last time the government issued RTBs was in November last year.

During this issuance, the BTr was able to raise P255.4 billion at a coupon rate of 4.625 percent. This was more than eight times the original issue size of P30 billion.

De Leon said the results of the fund raising activity reflected the strong demand and confidence from the general investing public.

Aside from RTBs, the government is also eyeing to issue US-denominated global bonds and samurai bonds or yen-denominated securities this year.

As of end-March, the national government’s outstanding debt settled at P6.879 trillion, 0.85 percent higher than the previous month’s level of P6.821 trillion.

This led to a debt-to-GDP ratio of 56.2 percent in the first quarter, higher than the 55.2 percent recorded in the same period last year.

Broken down, the share of domestic debt – which include RTBs – to GDP rose to 36.5 percent from the 35.4 percent a year ago.

Foreign debt-to-GDP ratio, on the other hand, slightly declined to 19.7 percent from 19.8 percent.