Saturday, June 29, 2013

Central bank plans internal borrowing in last fortnight of the fiscal year



Government is planning to raise internal debt worth Rs 17 billion at a time, when the fiscal year is coming to an end in less than 15 days.
Earlier, government’s inability to spend in the current fiscal year has made the budget surplus making ti unnecessary to issue government bonds.
According to the central bank’s internal debt calendar, it will also be issuing treasury bills worth Rs 13 billion and foreign employment bonds worth Rs 1 billion in the last 10 days of the fiscal year.
In the budget for the current fiscal year, announced late in April, the government had planned to issue debt instruments worth Rs 38 billion to finance budget deficit, though there is a huge budget surplus of around Rs 40 billion.
Though, the earlier foreign employment bond had received a lukewarm response, the central bank is issuing Foreign Employment Bond 2075 worth Rs 1 billion aimed at Nepali migrant workers and Non-Resident Nepalis (NRNs) targeting to sell in 11 countries through six designated agents.
The bond offers a coupon rate of 10.5 per cent for a five-year tenure.
The issue is opening from July 2 to July 10, whereas the fiscal year will come to an end on July 15.
The NRNs and migrant workers in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, US, UK, Australia, Japan and Israel can purchase the bonds in multiples of Rs 5,000 through the agents, apart from those Nepali workers, who have returned from India
Migrants who have returned from foreign jobs within the last four months and family members of migrant workers can also purchase the bonds.
In the fiscal year 2011-12, of the total issue worth Rs 1 billion, agents were able to sell foreign employment bonds worth Rs 8.6 million only.
Likewise, in the fiscal year 2009-10 — when the foreign employment bonds was issued for the first time — bonds worth only Rs 4.6 million of the total issue of Rs 1 billion were subscribed.
Similarly, in the fiscal year 2010-11 too, only Rs 4 million worth bonds – out of the total issue worth Rs 5 billion – were sold.

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