Spanish treasury places over 4 bln euros on market at interest rates close to zero

The Spanish treasury placed on Tuesday treasury bills valued at 4.6 billion euros (4.946 billion U.S. dollars) with interest rates falling to an all-time low and registering a high demand of more than 11 billion euros.

A total of 3.864 billion euros worth of 12-month lifespan carried an average interest rate of 0.067 percent, while the marginal interest rate stood at 0.07 percent, below the previous 0.197 percent of the previous auction.

The placement also included 735 million euros worth of six-month lifespan bills that fetched an average interest rate of 0.036 percent. The marginal interest rate stood at 0.04 percent, which was below the 0.095 percent of the previous issue held in February.

Falls in interest rates and Spanish risk premium, which fell to 98.2 points after the auction, were caused by the purchase program of the European Central Bank (ECB) that started buying public debt of euro zone countries on Monday.

So far, the Spanish treasury has placed 41.2 billion euros of medium and long term debt on the market, which represented 29 percent of the country's financial goals for the year, around 141.996 billion euros. (1 euro = 1.07 U.S. dollars) Endit