THE Bureau of Treasury (BTr) has partially awarded Treasury bills (T-bills) on Monday, as rates continued to climb.
Data from the BTr showed that the bureau raised P5 billion on Monday’s auction, after fully awarding 182-day bills, but did not award any for the 91-day and 364-day bills during the day.
The amount tendered for both the 91-day and the 364-day bills were also below the amount offered, at P4.65 billion and P4.865 billion, respectively. The amount offered for both is at P5 billion.
Meanwhile, for the 182-day bills, the amount tendered hit P9.975 billion, exceeding the P5 billion amount offered. National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon said the results of the auction came as markets adopt a “wait-and-see” stance on US CPI inflation.
De Leon also said markets remained cautious with continuous Fed statements on the need to be restrictive to “finish the job” and conquer inflation.
Rates were higher across the board for Monday’s auction, with 91-day bill rates hitting an average rate of 3.349 percent if fully awarded from the 2.318 percent in the previous week’s auction.
For the 182-day bills, rates hit 3.634 percent from the 3.485 percent in the previous week. While the 364-day bill rates hit 4.392 percent if fully awarded from the 4.356 percent in the previous week.
For this month, the Treasury is set to borrow P200 billion from the local debt market in September, of which P140 billion will be through Treasury Bonds and another P60 billion from T-bills.
This year, the government is set to borrow a total of P2.21 trillion, of which 75 percent will be sourced locally while the remaining 25 percent will come from foreign sources.
As of end-July this year, the national government’s outstanding debt has soared to a new record-high of P12.89 trillion, an increase of P96.09 billion or 0.8 percent during the first month of the Marcos administration from P12.79 trillion as of end-June.
The country’s debt-to-GDP ratio slightly eased to 62.1 percent in the second quarter of the year from 63.5 percent in the first quarter. However, this remained above the internationally-recommended 60-percent threshold for a healthy economy.
