The Bureau of the Treasury fully awarded P15 billion in 35-day Treasury bills (T-bills) on Tuesday’s auction despite the security capping at a higher average rate.
The auction was still oversubscribed by 1.5x as tenders reached P22.815 billion, above the P15-billion offering.
However, the Treasury did not open the tap facility window for an additional offering of the tenor.
The 35-day T-bills fetched a higher average rate at 2.101 percent, up by 3.6 basis points from 2.065 percent previously.
National Treasurer Rosalia V. De Leon said the increase in the average rates can be attributed to banks wanting to be within the inflation-forecast ecosystem.
On Monday, the Treasury raised an additional P7.71 billion in 364-day T-bills through the tap facility auction, which was opened to all 11 government securities eligible dealers-market makers.
This is on top of the P20 billion it raised earlier on the same day via auctioning off 91-day, 182-day and 364-day T-bills.
For this week, the Treasury has raised P42.71 billion in T-bills, including those from the Monday’s tap facility auction.
In a related development, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III on Tuesday told reporters that the government is still maintaining the 70-to-30 borrowing mix ratio for this year in favor of domestic sources despite measures to contain the Covid-19 pandemic threatens to stall the economy.
Dominguez added the Philippines getting a credit rating upgrade to A- from the Japan Credit Rating Agency will help in the terms and cost of financing of the so-called “Samurai” bonds, which the Philippines plans to issue in the second half of this year.
“The timely upgrade …affects not only the government bonds or issues but it will also open the eyes of foreigners to the possibility of making foreign investments, either through direct investments or through buying our bonds, more likely,” Dominguez said.