MANILA – The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) again opened its tap facility Monday to offer the one-year Treasury bill (T-bill) to address strong appetite after investors swamped the auction, which resulted in drop in interest rates.
BTr offered the three-month paper for PHP5 billion, and the auction committee made a full award after tenders reached PHP22.32 billion.
This tenor’s rate declined to 2.269 percent from 2.479 percent during the auction last May 4.
Rate of the 182-day T-bill went down to 2.374 percent from 2.625 percent last week.
The auction committee upsized the award to PHP7 billion from earlier announced PHP5-billion offering after bids totaled to PHP27.321 billion.
Rate of the 364-day paper slipped to 2.761 percent from the previous week’s 2.945 percent.
This tenor was fully awarded at PHP10 billion after bids totaled to PHP37.544 billion.
BTr offered this again on the tap facility for PHP10 billion.
National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon attributed their decision to fully-award the debt papers to drop in the papers’ interest rates.
Meanwhile, the government on Monday reported its March 2020 fiscal performance, and de Leon cited the lower year-on-year budget deficit.
Data released by the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) showed that total revenues in the third month this year reached PHP273.7 billion, 19.58 percent higher than the PHP228.9 billion same month last year.
Expenditures rose by 15.97 percent to PHP333.2 billion from year-ago’s PHP287.3 billion.
This resulted in a deficit of PHP59.5 billion, 1.83 percent higher than the PHP58.4 billion during the same period last year.
In the first quarter this year, revenues amounted to PHP775.2 billion, 12.72 percent higher than year-ago’s PHP687.7 billion.
Government spending amounted to PHP849.2 billion, up 9.16 percent from the PHP778 billion in the same period last year.
Deficit declined by 17.97 percent to PHP74 billion from year-ago’s PHP90.2 billion. (PNA)
