National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon
MANLA – Rates of the Philippines treasury bills (T-bills) rose Monday but National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon said this remained generally low given the high liquidity situation in the domestic economy.
Average rate of the 91-day debt paper rose to 1.18 percent, the 182-day to 1.421 percent, and the 364-day to 1.788 percent.
These were at 1.131 percent, 1.407 percent, and 1.751 percent for the three-, six-, and 12-month paper during the auction last August 24.
All the tenders were oversubscribed thus, the auction committee made a full award across-the-board.
The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) offered the shortest tenor paper for PHP5 billion, and bids amounted to PHP15.213 billion.
Tenders for the six months paper reached PHP15.263 billion, more than three times the PHP5-billion offer.
The one-year paper was offered for PHP10 billion and received tenders amounting to PHP25.26 billion.
“Rate(s) moved slightly following (the) MB decision to pause as well as (the) Fed new framework on inflation target allowing (the) yield curve to steepen. Still rates remain low with good inshore liquidity as subscriptions are more than twice our ask volume,” de Leon said.
She was referring to the decision of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) policy-making Monetary Board (MB) to keep key rates steady during its rate setting meeting last August 20.
The Board said inflation remains benign and there is a need to observe the impact of the rate cuts implemented since the start of the year, and to allow these measures to work its way into the economy.
The US’ Federal Reserve recently announced a policy shift wherein it will allow inflation to rise above its 2-percent target before hiking policy rates. (PNA)
