Govt eyes raising ₧225B in Aug from GS sale

By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas

The Treasury on Monday announced its borrowing program for August, outlining the schedule and volume of Treasury bills (T-bills) and Treasury bonds (T-bonds) to be auctioned next month.

The Treasury said it targets to raise a total of P75 billion from the auction of short-term T-bills across five weeks.

Each auction would have a volume of P15 billion divided equally in three tenors: 91-day, 182-day, and 364-day T-bills.

The national government is also planning to borrow a total of P150 billion from the sale of five T-bonds next month, according to the Treasury’s schedule.

The Treasury will be auctioning off 5-year, 6-year, 10-year, and 15year T-bonds in August.

The national government has been behind its borrowing program this month as it has only been able to raise P122.222 billion so far until the third week of July out of its target P135 billion during the covered period.

For the whole month, the Treasury targets to raise a total of P180 billion from the auction of P120-billion worth of T-bonds and P60-billion worth of T-bills.

The Treasury’s final T-bills and T-bonds auction for July is scheduled on July 25 and July 26, respectively.

The national government was unable to borrow its intended amount of P185 billion for June from the domestic market as rising interest rates hounded much of the state’s auction for short-term debt papers.

The Treasury was able to raise nearly P173 billion from the auction of T-bills and Treasury bonds T-bonds, which was about 93.5 percent of the programmed amount of P185 billion for June.

For the whole year, the national government plans to borrow P2.207 trillion with a 75:25 mix in favor of domestic sources.

Some analysts believe the Philippine government can raise revenue from the sale of government securities if it follows the pace of the US Federal Reserve’s hawkishness.