THE Bureau of the Treasury raised P21 billion from auctioning off Treasury Bills (T-bills) on Monday as overwhelming demand for government securities pushed the rates lower across all tenors.
The actual sale was an upsize from the initial P15-billion offer by the Treasury after the auction committee decided to double the accepted non-competitive bids for all tenors.
The auction was also nearly 7-times oversubscribed as total submitted bids reached a whopping P100.3 billion.
National Treasurer Rosalia V. De Leon attributed the investor appetite to strong liquidity in the market.
“Liquidity looking for outlets as RTB [Retail Treasury Bonds] maturity further bolstered ample funds onshore searching for yield,” De Leon told reporters.
Despite the demand, the Treasurer said they chose to keep the tap facility closed for additional offering.
During the auction last June 14, the 91-day T-bills fetched an average rate of 1.118 percent, down by 5.8 basis points from 1.176 percent in the previous auction. It attracted total bids amounting to P28.229 billion, more than five times the initial P5-billion offer. For the 182-day T-bills, it settled at an average rate of 1.372 percent, a 5-basis point drop from 1.422 percent in the previous auction. Total tenders for the security hit P34.037 billion, nearly seven times the initial P5-billion program.
Lastly, the 364-day T-bills’ average rate declined by 7.2 basis points to 1.577 percent from 1.649 percent previously. Total tenders for the debt paper reached P38.03 billion, more than seven times the initial P5-billion offer.
For this month alone, the Treasury is aiming to borrow P215 billion from the local debt market, up by 26 percent compared to the programmed P170-billion monthly borrowing in April and May. The bulk of the programmed domestic borrowings for June, or P140 billion, is set to be raised through T-bonds with longer tenors while the rest of the amount is planned to be raised by auctioning off P75 billion in Treasury Bills.
For this year, the national government has set a P3.03-trillion gross borrowing program, roughly the same amount it borrowed in 2020.
Eighty percent of the amount is programmed to be raised through domestic sources while the remaining 20 percent is expected to come from foreign sources.
The national government’s total outstanding debt continued to swell to a fresh record-high of 10.991 trillion in April this year as the country resorts to more borrowings to finance its pandemic response.
This was up by 2 percent from the P10.77 trillion reported at the end of the year’s first quarter and a 27.8-percent jump from P8.6 trillion of end-April last year.
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