By Joann Villanueva – PNA
MANILA — The Philippine government is still on a wait-and-see stance vis-a-vis its planned US dollar bond sale, which it targets to issue this quarter.
In an interview at the sidelines of the Senate hearing on the proposed 2019 national budget Wednesday, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said they are monitoring the market on a daily basis.
“We are waiting for the right moment. Everything is in the timing so we’re just waiting for the right moment and we have great confidence on our National Treasurer’s ability to read the market,” he said.
Earlier, National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon said the government is considering issuing as much as USD1.5-billion-worth of dollar bond, otherwise known as the Republic of the Philippines (ROP) bond, before the end of this year.
She said they are still considering to issuing debt paper with a tenor between 10 years to 25 years.
If this pushes through, it will be the fourth in terms of foreign borrowing for the government this year after the USD2 billion ROP issuance last January, the 1.46 billion renminbi-denominated three-year Panda bond issuances last March and the multi-year 154.2 billion Japanese yen Samurai bond last September.
The government already held a non-deal roadshow in Asia and US for this planned issuance.
Dominguez stressed that there is no immediate need for the debt issuance.
“We thought that it would be better to do it earlier than later, but it didn’t turn out to be an ideal situation,” he said, citing the “big uncertainties that were overhanging the market.”
He identified these uncertainties as the trade issues overseas and developments on global oil prices.
On the other hand, he said he thinks “it seems that the markets are settling down.”
With this consideration, he remains hopeful for the issuance to push through before the end of this year.
“We’ll see. Of course, it’s possible,” he added.
