Outstanding gov’t debt notes reached P4.49T in end-April
The total amount of outstanding government-issued IOUs further increased to P4.49 trillion in April as the government jacked up its domestic borrowings program for the second quarter.
The combined value of outstanding treasury bills and bonds at the end of the first four months rose from P4.46 billion in March, the latest Bureau of the Treasury data released on Friday showed.
As of end-April, outstanding treasury bonds went up to P4.16 trillion from P4.13 trillion a month ago.
Outstanding treasury bills also inched up to P333.4 billion from end-March’s P332.4 billion.
For the outstanding bills, P116.4 billion were from the sale of 91-day IOUs, P94.5 billion from 182-day debt paper, and P122.5 billion from 364-day treasury bills.
Among the outstanding T-bonds, three-year IOUs have a face amount of P69.9 billion; five-year debt paper, P327.3 billion; seven-year bonds, P604.7 billion; and 10-year securities, P387.4 billion.
As for 10-year agrarian reform bonds, the outstanding amount was P7.7 billion; 20-year IOUs, P332.4 billion; and 25-year debt paper, P235.9 billion.
Of the $6.58-million Philippine Par Bonds redenominated into 28.5 years, the outstanding amount was P97.1 million.
Outstanding retail treasury bonds amounted to P1.2 trillion.
Also outstanding were P909.3 billion in benchmark bonds; P50-billion in 25-year CB-BoL (Central Bank Board of Liquidators) bonds, and P25.9 billion in onshore dollar bonds.
In March, the Treasury announced that it had programmed to sell P325 billion in government securities during the second quarter, a bigger volume than the first-quarter borrowing program of P240 billion.
Last month, economic managers increased the share of foreign borrowings to the total financing program in the next five years, citing “good” rates being offered by China, Japan and South Korea to finance priority projects and programs.
The Cabinet-level Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) in April adjusted the financing program to 65-percent domestic, 35-percent external for this year from the 74:26 mix approved during its meeting last December.
“With the prefunding exercise in the sale of treasury bonds in fiscal year 2017, there is a lower requirement for local financing in 2018,” the DBCC had explained.
In January, the Philippines sold a total of $2 billion in 10-year dollar-denominated global bonds at a coupon rate of 3 percent. In March, the government sold 1.46 billion renminbi or nearly P12.2 billion in three-year panda bonds in China at a yield of 5 percent. The government also plans to issue up to $1 billion in yen-denominated samurai bonds in Japan by September or October.
For 2019 to 2022, the borrowing mix will be 75:25 in favor of domestic sources even as there was an increase in the share of foreign borrowings from 20 percent previously.
As for the adjusted financing mix for the next four years, the DBCC had explained that the government was “diversifying its investor base and tapping new markets to meet its financing requirements at the most cost-efficient manner.”
Despite a programmed increase in foreign borrowings, “the debt-to-GDP [gross domestic product] ratio is also projected to continue its decline from 42.1 percent in end-2017 to as low as 38.9 percent in 2022,” the DBCC had said. —BEN O. DE VERA
