China's Ministry of Finance is issuing 5.6 billion yuan in local government bonds on Tuesday.

Three billion yuan (about US$439 million) in bonds will be sold on behalf of China's Liaoning Province. Another 2.6 billion yuan in bonds will be sold for the Tianjin Municipality.

The bonds will take the form of book-entry national treasury bonds and will be sold to investors between April 14 and 16. They will become tradable as of April 20 on the inter-bank market and securities exchanges, the ministry said.

The fixed coupon for the bonds of Liaoning stands at 1.75 percent. Tianjin is 1.78 percent. Interest for both will be paid annually.

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

Four other batches of bonds for local government in Anhui, Henan, Sichuan and the Chongqing Municipality, have already been sold.

Three billion yuan of the local government bonds from the east China's Shandong Province is scheduled for bidding April 15, according to the ministry. They will be issued starting April 16-20.

(Xinhua News Agency April 14, 2009)