Sale of 35-day debt papers adds ₧15B to govt coffers

THE Bureau of the Treasury awarded P15 billion in 35-day Treasury bills (T-bills) on Tuesday on the back of a higher rate than the previous auction and investors’ robust demand for shorter tenors.

The auction attracted p34.39 billion in total tenders, more than twice as much as the p15 billionoffering.

the average rate for the tenor fetched a higher average rate at 2.065 percent, up by 4.1 basis points from the average rate of 2.024 percent during the previous auction.

the treasury did not open its tap facility for the said tenor.

national treasurer rosalia V. De leon told reporters they expected the “rates to be within the vicinity of inflation.”

“We see now [the] appetite for [the] immediate part of [the] curve,” De leon added.

inflation in May is projected by the Bangko Sentral ng pilipinas (BSP) to be within 1.9 percent to 2.7 percent due to higher domestic oil prices and price hikes in select agricultural products caused by supply bottlenecks and typhoon ambo. this is within Bsp’s range of inflation target for the year of 2 percent and 4 percent.

the philippine Statistics authority is set to release official May inflation data on June 5.

on Monday, the treasury also raised an additional p10 billion in 364-day t-bills through its tap facility auction.

this is on top of the p26 billion in 91-day, 182-day and 364-day t-bills the treasury earlier awarded on the same day.

all in all, government has so far borrowed a total of p51 billion from the local debt market. it aims to borrow p170 billion more from this market this month, the same level the government programmed in May.

of the p170 billion, p110 billion will be borrowed through the auction of t-bills and p60 billion in treasury bonds.