State savings bonds to pay 3%

State savings bonds to pay 3%

The Finance Ministry will start selling savings bonds worth 50 billion baht to the public on Monday.

The bonds will pay a 3% fixed coupon rate per year, payable every six months. Purchases are capped at 2 million baht per account per person and the minimum is set at 1,000 baht.

The bonds will be available for sale at Krungthai Bank, Siam Commercial Bank, Bangkok Bank and Kasikornbank from Monday to Feb 20 next year.

"We believe the bonds will draw much interest since the Government Pension Fund is due to pay 54 billion baht to its retiring members during the period," Suvich Rojanavaniuch, director of the ministry's Public Debt Management Office, said on Friday.

The ministry also plans to issue another tranche of the same amount in the future.

The Bank of Thailand also on Friday reported a $1.7-billion increase in international reserves to $157 billion or 5.62 trillion baht as of Oct 9.

Traders said the increase was due to the strong baht, at 35 to the US dollar early this month from 36 earlier.

"The strong baht was due to disappointing US economic figures and the Federal Reserve's possible delay in its policy interest rate hike. 

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