The national government reported gross borrowings in the first three months worth P207.917 billion, with the bulk, or P146.140 billion, from offshore lenders and onshore accounts of another P61.777 billion, data from the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) showed.
Based on recent data, the borrowings represented a contraction by 2.44 percent from last year amounting to only P213.121 billion.
Of the total gross borrowings for the quarter, funds borrowed from foreign markets reached P146.140 billion, expanding by 16.97 percent from only P124.939 billion in the first quarter of 2017.
This includes project loans amounting to P10 billion, program loans worth P21.44 billion, Chinese yuan bonds of P12.014 billion and global bonds exchange of another P102.682 billion.
Domestic borrowings during the quarter reached P61.777 billion, a contraction by 29.94 percent from P88.182 billion in the same period in 2017.
Treasury bills (T-bills) and fixed-rate Treasury bonds (T-bonds) formed part of the borrowings from domestic sources. T-bills accounted for P18.004 billion of the total domestic borrowings, while fixed-rate T-bonds settled at
P43.773 billion.
National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon told financial reporters the mandate for the second global bonds issuance eyed this year may come out in June.
“Maybe around the first week of June. No rush at all. We just want to put everything on the table as preparation. We just have to put the approvals in place so that once we want to strike, we can do so,” de Leon said.
De Leon added the government may recalibrate its bond-sale program in the succeeding quarters to make up for lost increments or tap other funding mechanisms to cover the gap.
Such mechanisms include upsizing the bond sale, tap the overseas rather than the domestic debt market or simply roll over maturing bonds.
“If we see that markets would continue to behave this way we could either retain or look for other options, not necessarily through the auction,” she said.
In March the Philippines became the first Asean sovereign to issue Panda bonds, with the sale of three-year Panda bonds with a 5-percent coupon, a tight spread of only 35 basis points above benchmark, when it sold in the onshore Chinese bond market on March 20.
The government’s inaugural sale of renminbi-denominated bonds proved a hit, with bids reaching RMB 9.22 billion compared with the government’s debt offering of only RMB 1.46 billion.
In January the Philippines returned to the international capital markets with a $2-billion 10-year global bond offering.
The transaction marked the first time the Republic issued a 10-year dollar-denominated bond since 2014. The bonds were offered concurrently with a one-day accelerated switch tender offer for 14 of the Republic’s outstanding dollar bonds maturing between 2019 to 2037.