The Public Debt Management Office (PDMO) is selling the final tranche of its savings bonds worth 40 billion baht in August, reduced from the original plan of 60 billion baht.
According to Patchara Anuntasilpa, director-general of the PDMO, for fiscal year 2024 the PDMO has already issued 40 billion baht in savings bonds from the original target of 100 billion baht. Therefore, there was an outstanding balance of bonds worth 60 billion baht still to be issued.
However, due to delays in budget disbursement this year, the PDMO does not need to borrow as much as initially planned, so has reduced the savings bond issuance amount by 20 billion baht to align with the actual needs.
The new savings bonds, available for purchase from Aug 13 to Aug 30, will have maturities of five years and 10 years, with interest rates of 3% per year for the five-year bonds and 3.40% per year for the 10-year bonds.
Regarding the issuance of foreign-currency bonds, Mr Patchara said the PDMO will delay the offering due to significant differences between domestic and international interest rates. Selling bonds at this time would increase government costs and be affected by the weakening baht.
However, the PDMO is preparing information for future foreign-currency bond offerings and will present it when the timing is favourable, he said.
Mr Patchara said his office plans to issue 30-billion-baht's worth of sustainability-linked bonds in September, which is the end of fiscal year 2024.
The PDMO is in the process of determining the interest rates based on environmental indicators for the bonds, which will have a maturity of 15 years.
Mr Patchara also mentioned that for the remainder of this fiscal year, the PDMO anticipates significant fundraising to be used in the fiscal years of 2024 and 2025, given the transition period of budget expenditures which will be concentrated towards the end of fiscal year 2024 and the accelerated budget disbursement during the beginning of fiscal year 2025.
"For the remainder of this year, the PDMO has already prepared plans to raise a substantial amount of funds for the government. However, this is unlikely to impact the liquidity of the private sector, which needs to raise funds during this period. The significant inflow of funds towards the end of the year is expected to boost this year's GDP," he said.
He confirmed that this would not affect the liquidity of the private sector, which needs to raise funds during that period. The significant inflow of funds at the end of the year is expected to boost annual GDP growth, Mr Patchara said.