National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon
MANILA – Rates of the Philippines Treasury bills (T-bills) declined Monday as demand remained strong.
Data released by the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) after the auction showed the rate of the bellwether 91-day paper slipped to 2.617 percent from 3.113 percent during the auction last week.
BTr offered this tenor for PHP7 billion while tenders were more than four times at PHP29.133 billion. The auction committee made a full award.
The 182-day paper’s average rate went down to 2.831 percent from 3.239 percent last week.
Bids totaled to PHP27.576 billion, nearly four times the PHP7-billion offer, which was also fully awarded.
Rate of the 364-day T-bill declined to 3.054 percent from the previous week’s 3.295 percent.
The auction committee made a full award of PHP10 billion after it amounted to PHP34.445 billion.
BTr opened its tap facility to offer additional PHP10 billion worth of one-year T-bill.
“Market (is) flushed with liquidity and rates dropped with reassuring statements from (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) Gov. Benjamin Diokno,” National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon told journalists in a Viber message after the auction.
She was referring to Diokno’s statement regarding the central bank’s readiness to further implement policy measures to help the government address the economic impact of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.
She also attributed the strong domestic liquidity to national government’s (NG) “resources augmented by ODA (official development assistance) inflows and NG announcement of issuing in dollar market.”
Reports said the Philippine government offered 10-year and 25-year US dollar bonds overseas Monday.
De Leon declined to give specifics on the bond offer except that they plan to issue benchmark level or about USD500 million to USD700 million worth of debt paper.
The debt paper offer is part of the government’s annual fundraising activity for budgetary support and government officials said borrowings will be tapped to augment budget for Covid-19 response. (PNA)
