Gov’t plans to issue P117B in debt notes

The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) plans to issue a total of P117 billion in domestic debt paper in the first quarter of 2012—18 percent higher than that lined up in the previous quarter.

Also, the domestic borrowing plan for the January-March quarter represents an increase of 3 percent from the P114 billion slated in the same period this year.

The year-on-year increase in domestic borrowing comes alongside a planned issuance of global bonds, which finance officials said would take place as early as January.

In a notice to dealers of government securities, National Treasurer Roberto B. Tan said the BTr would offer in six fortnightly auctions a total of P15 billion in 91-day Treasury bills, P18 billion in 182-day bills and P21 billion in 364-day bills.

Also in the first quarter, the BTr is set to offer three batches of seven-year bonds, as well as 10-year and 20-year bonds. Each batch of T-bond issues is worth P9 billion.

The issuance of debt paper scheduled in the first quarter is expected to help the government start the year with a flurry of disbursements to counter this year’s sluggish spending.

As of end-November, the budget deficit settled at P96.2 billion, just about a third of the P300 billion planned for the full year.