Turkish Treasury borrows less than planned in March

ANKARA

The Turkish Treasury concluded its domestic bond sales for March with less than initially planned amount of borrowing.

In March, the Treasury held a total of four auctions for zero coupon, CPI-indexed, fixed coupon and floating coupon bonds with maturities ranging from nine months to six years.

Through the auctions held for those government debt securities raised a total of 10.18 billion Turkish Liras – 6.79 billion liras from the markets plus 3.4 billion from the public institution.

The 10.2 billion borrowing in March was less than what the Treasury initially announced it would borrow.

At the last auctions of the month on March 26, the Treasury borrowed 3.33 billion liras at an annual compound yield of 19.39 percent through the two-year fixed coupon bond. The authority raised another 1.46 billion liras by selling six-year floating rate notes at an annual compound of 19.78 percent.

In an announcement it made on Dec. 31 last year, the Treasury said it planned to borrow 14.4 billion liras against the domestic debt redemption of 15.3 billion for March.

Apparently, the Treasury kept its March borrowing less than it initially announced because it has raised substantial amount of financing on the international capital markets in the first quarter of this year.

The amount of funds that have been raised from the international capital markets as part of the $8 billion worth of 2018 Eurobond issuance program has reached $6.4 billion, the Treasury announced on March 19 following its dollar-denominated bond issue.