MANILA – The government is set to approve the government’s planned sale of $1 billion in overseas bonds.

Deputy governor Diwa Guinigundo told Bloomberg that the government is "rushing" to approve the bond sale to take advantage of the lower costs in the overseas market.

The government needs to raise additional funds to finance a record budget deficit. The latest deficit target set by government economic managers was at P250 billion, or 3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. The amount is a far cry from the government’s original deficit target of P40 billion.

Last week, the government asked banks to submit bids to arrange the country’s second sale of dollar-denominated debt this year.

Recent data indicates that borrowing costs may fall.

Yields on the $1.5 billion, 10-year securities, which were sold in January, have dropped by 2 percentage points to a rate of 6.36 percent as of Monday morning.

The government’s $1 billion dollar-denominated debt is likely to come first before the $1.5 billion Samurai bond earlier mentioned by finance officials. The Philippine government and state-owned Japanese bank executives are still negotiating the Japanese government’s guarantees on the Samurai bond.

ABS-CBN News

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