Friday October 16, 3:47 PM
Storm-whipped Philippines to tap US bond market
The Philippines said Friday it would tap the global bond market shortly for up to one billion dollars amid concern that damage from two tropical storms could dramatically increase its budget deficit.
Manila has organised Deutsche Bank and investment banks HSBC and UBS as bookrunners for the dollar-denominated 25-year bonds, "to be launched in the near future subject to market conditions," the finance department announced.
"We have authority (of) up to one billion dollars," a spokeswoman for Finance Secretary Margarito Teves told AFP.
President Gloria Arroyo's economic aides have expressed concern this week that tropical storms Ketsana and Parma, which killed more than 700 people over the past month, may cause the budget deficit this year to shoot past 300 billion pesos (6.46 billion pesos).
They see reconstruction costs and slower economic activity as putting pressure on Manila's full-year budget deficit target ceiling of 250 billion pesos, or 3.2 percent of the projected gross domestic product for the year.
|
