China's Ministry of Finance (MOF) announced on Friday that it will issue a total of 5.8 billion yuan (about US$849.2 million) of local government bonds on behalf of China's western Chongqing municipality on April 13.

The bonds, which is the fifth of its kinds in China, will take the form of book-entry national treasury bonds and be sold to investors between April 13 and 15, and will become tradable as of April 17 on the inter-bank market and securities exchanges, the ministry said.

The bonds have a fixed coupon of 1.7 percent, according to the bond bidding that ended on Friday. The coupon is higher than that of the previous two batches of bonds, with interest to be paid annually.

China plans to float 200 billion yuan of local government bonds this year. The first batch of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region government issued on March 30.

Three more batches of local bonds will be issued in the first half of April, said sources with China Government Securities Depository Trust and Clearing Co. Ltd., a non-banking financial institution in charge of centralizing depository and settlement for the inter-bank bond market.

The ministry said last month that most of the 200-billion-yuan local government bonds would be issued during the second and third quarters this year.

(Xinhua News Agency April 11, 2009)