T-bill rates slide across the board

Interest rates on Treasury bills again fell across the board on Monday with available funds exceeding three times the government’s offers.

As a result, the yield on the bellwether 91-day bills dropped by 10.8 basis points to average at 5.15 percent.

Rates on the 182-day paper eased by 11 basis points to average 5.59 percent while those for the 364-day securities fell 18.6 basis points to average 5.683 percent.

The Bureau of the Treasury raised P15 billion as planned. Investors tendered a total of P47.8 billion or more than three times the total offered volume.

For the benchmark bill alone, tenders reached P10.56 billion or more than thrice the P4 billion on offer.

Lenders made available P11.42 billion for the 182-day bills and P25.9 billion for the 364-day paper—respectively more than twice and four times the offers of P5 billion and P6 billion.

Also on Monday, the government’s economic team said national spending needed to be ramped up if the goal of posting a 6-percent full-year growth in gross domestic product (GDP) were to be achieved.

In a joint statement, the National Economic and Development Authority and the Departments of Budget and Management and of Finance said that for 2019, national government disbursements were targeted to reach P3.77 trillion, equivalent to 19.6 percent of GDP.

“This is 10.7 percent higher than the actual disbursement in 2018,” the statement said. “Meanwhile, total infrastructure disbursements would have to reach P1 trillion, equivalent to 5.2 percent of GDP, with the national government accounting for P808.7 billion of targeted infrastructure spending.”

The economic team added that the economy was expected to expand faster for the rest of 2019 compared to the first quarter’s 5.5 percent as inflation continued trending toward the official target range of 2-4 percent and as the government accelerated the implementation of its infrastructure and human capital development projects. —RONNEL W. DOMINGO