Off the wire
• Austrian unemployment rate in March drops 1.8 pct  • World Bank to expand support to Ghana: country director  • British stocks drop 0.55 pct Monday  • 3rd LD Writethru: Ten killed in subway explosion in Russia's St. Petersburg  • Portugal's public debt rises in February: Bank of Portugal  • Iran criticizes Iraqi Kurds for escalating tensions with gov't  • Malta receives record number of tourists for February  • Spanish stock market falls 1.32 pct, closes at 10,325 points  • Iran not seeking tensions with U.S.: FM  • Croatian president congratulates Serbian president-elect  
You are here: 　 Home

Ghana gov't discloses additional bond issues

Xinhua, April 3, 2017 Adjust font size:

The Ghana government has issued 5-year and a 10-year bonds through a Tap-in to raise the cedi equivalent of 1.12 billion U.S. dollars, Ministry of Finance disclosed here late Monday.

The bonds were additional issues besides the 15-year and 7-year bonds issued on Friday to raise 1.13 billion U.S. dollars.

This brings the total amount raised in the domestic bonds on Friday to 2.25 billion dollars, making it the largest amount issued by a sub-Saharan African country in a single day.

In a statement the finance ministry disclosed that this issuance attracted a number of global portfolio investors including a very substantial investment in the 15-year bond by a very well respected global financial investor as the government seeks longer dated debts to restructure its nearly 30 billion dollars of debt.

"This is in line with our liability management strategy which seeks to re-profile our public debt stock, extend tenors, reduce short term rollover pressures, and lower domestic interest cost. Additionally, this issuance will further help improve our foreign exchange reserves by over two billion dollars and further support the cedi," the statement said.

The statement also quoted the Minister for Finance, Kenneth Ofori-Atta that "this is an indication of the markets' belief in our commitment to building an effective public financial management system, improve the country's debt sustainability outlook and mitigate the crowding out of the private sector."

In a related development, parliament passed the Appropriation Bill for the 2017 budget, including the landmark re-alignment of statutory funds which frees up about one billion U.S. dollars in fiscal space for 2017. Endit