PH bond market grew by 29% in 2020

Bigger government borrowings to raise funds for COVID-19 response fueled the growth of the Philippines’ domestic bond market in 2020, an Asian Development Bank (ADB) report on Friday showed.

ADB’s Asia Bond Monitor for March 2021 showed that the local currency bond market grew by 28.9 percent to P8.57 trillion last year from P6.65 trillion in 2019.

Quarter-on-quarter, the end-2020 volume also grew by 5.3 percent from P8.14 trillion during the third quarter.

The volume of government-issued IOUs like treasury bills and bonds as well as Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas securities rose 35.3 percent year-on-year and 7 percent quarter-on-quarter as of end-2020.

Government bonds accounted for 81.2 percent of the total peso-denominated bond market last year.

The government last year sourced the bulk of its borrowings locally to temper foreign exchange risks amid uncertain times, such that outstanding domestic debt accounted for 68.4 percent of the end-2020 total, up from 66.3 percent in 2019.

The country had to borrow more last year amid the pandemic that weakened government’s revenues from taxes and fees.

Corporate bonds rose 7.1 percent to P1.61 trillion last year from P1.51 trillion in 2019, but the fourth quarter volume fell by 1.3 percent from P1.63 trillion in the third quarter.

The ADB said outstanding bonds issued by corporations shrank in the fourth quarter due to maturities and declining issuance.