Sri Lanka’s Central Bank to sell USD225mn development bonds

Jan 14, 2017 (LBO) – The Central Bank will issue 225 million US dollar development bonds with a tenor of 1 year, 2 years, and 3 years and 2 months to local and foreign investors.

The Debt Department said the subscription will be at a floating rate of 6 month LIBOR for USD plus a margin through competitive bidding, or at a fixed rate to be determined through competitive bidding.

Minimum investment is 10,000 US dollars with additional investments in multiples of 10,000 US dollars. The issue will be open for subscription from 16 to 19 January and has a date of settlement of 23 January 2017.

Development bonds are to be issued by the Public Debt Department of Central Bank and exempted from income tax paid in Sri Lanka. Selected licensed commercial banks and primary dealers are designated agents to purchase bonds while the paying agent is the Bank of Ceylon. Foreigners, non resident or dual citizen Sri Lankans, NRFC/RFC account holders, authorized dealers in foreign exchange, primary dealers in government securities, BOI specified companies and specified insurance companies are among eligible investors. Sri Lanka’s cabinet on Tuesday approved a proposal to borrow 1.5 billion US dollars from the issuances of development bonds this year. Borrowings from domestic sources are estimated to be at 1,129 billion rupees and foreign sources are estimated to be 450 billion rupees. It is expected to raise 225 billion rupees during 2017, through development bond issues within the total gross borrowing limit of 1,579 billion rupees approved by Parliament through the appropriation act 2016. The government said these gross borrowings are to be utilized for the repayment of loans amounting to 800 billion rupees and 779 billion rupees to finance development projects and other expenses in 2017.