National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon
MANILA -- The average rates of Treasury bills (T-bills) declined across-the-board Monday in anticipation of further deceleration of domestic inflation rate in September, which the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) is scheduled to report on Tuesday.
The rate of the 91-day paper declined to 1.116 percent, the 182-day to 1.600, and the 364-day to 1.800 percent.
These were at 1121 percent, 1.601 percent, and 1.858 percent for the three-, six-, and one-year paper during the auction last September 28.
All tenors were over-subscribed and fully awarded.
The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) offered the three-month paper for PHP5 billion but hiked this to PHP7 billion after it increased the accepted non-competitive bids.
Tenders reached PHP25.235 billion.
The six-month paper was offered for PHP5 billion and tenders reached PHP29.164 billion.
Bids for the one-year paper reached PHP44.459 billion, more than four times the PHP10-billion offer.
National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon attributed the drop in T-bill rates this week to expectations of further slowdown in domestic inflation rate for September.
Rate of price increases slowed to 2.4 percent last August after accelerating in the previous two months, with the July level at 2.7 percent.
Average inflation in the first eight months this year stood at 2.5 percent, at the lower half of the government’s 2-4 percent target band from 2020-2022.
“Redemption of PHP18 billion adds to available liquidity with short term buckets providing reinvestments outlets,” de Leon added, referring to the liquidity that was released because of maturing debt securities. (PNA)
