Gov’t to sell P135-B T-bills

MANILA, Philippines - The government plans to sell P135 billion worth of Treasury bills and bonds in the first quarter of next year to raise more funds to support its expenditure requirements.

The amount is the same size as the government’s borrowings in October to December 2014.

In a notice to the public, the Bureau of Treasury said it would issue P60 billion worth of 91-day, 182-day and 364-day Treasury bills and P75 billion of 7 and 20-year Treasury bonds from  January to March next year.

The government aims to source 86 percent of its borrowing requirements from the domestic market.  The remaining 14 percent will come from lenders overseas.

It borrows funds to pay maturing obligations and plug the deficit in its budget.

Foreign borrowings are done through the sale of sovereign bonds in the international capital market and by securing cheap loans, in the form of official development assistance (ODA), from multilateral development institutions.

The Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and Japan International Cooperation Agency are the biggest sources of ODAs.

National Treasurer Rosalia De Leon earlier said the country was looking at issuing up to $750 million worth of bonds next year, to mark its return to the global debt market after nearly two years of absence. 

The International Financing Review (IFR) earlier reported that the Philippine government tapped  Deutsche Bank and HSBC as joint global coordinators for a planned issuance of $1 billion worth of sovereign bonds.

The two banks will also be joint bookrunners alongside Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Standard Chartered and UBS.

The Philippines has aggressively pursued debt management schemes, including issuing local currency-denominated global bonds, to reduce its debt as a percentage of gross domestic product.