THE Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) fully awarded P15 billion in its latest auction for Treasury bonds (T-bonds) on Tuesday, on the back of the reasonable rates presented by the investing market for the government security.
National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon said that the auction committee deemed the rates presented by the investors to be within its internal estimates, which prompted the committee to award the full P15 billion on offer.
“So the 31-basis-point-increase, is more or less, reasonable,” de Leon said.
Bids for the reissued five year T-bond amounted to P24.524 billion, with the annual average rate settling at 5.902 percent.
“So you saw the 31-basis-point-increase because the last [time] we accepted for this security was sometime [in] May. Since May, there’s almost a 100 basis point-increase in the policy rate. So it’s just catching up, it’s just repricing,” she added.
This posted an increase of 31 basis points compared to the previous auction rate of 5.592 percent.
De Leon also pointed out that the planned issuance of Marawi bonds is well under way, and that the government is eyeing for its issuance by 2019 if the rehabilitation plan is already laid out completely.
“Yeah [possibly next year] but, of course, we just have to make sure that the prep work in terms of the plan is already prepared. Then the funding should be possibly the next one to be available…,” she said.
The government plans to issue Marawi bonds, or patriotic bonds, to help fund the recovery and rehabilitation of war-torn Marawi City, and encourage Filipinos to help in nation-building.
“But the timing [of the issuance] would depend on the phasing of the projects. So we still have to find out the strategy, how much we will be able to phase out [of] the issuance also,” she added.