RISE. Another jump in the Treasury bill (T-bill) rates resulted in another partial award and rejection for tenders submitted by investors. National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon, however, said the auction committee has the leeway to reject bids if rates are higher than their allowed range. (Photo courtesy of DOF)
MANILA – The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) partially awarded the 91- and 182-day Treasury bills (T-bills) on Monday but fully rejected bids for the one-year paper as rates continued to rise.
The average rate of the three-month paper rose to 3.819 percent and the six-month’s to 4.415 percent.
The rate of the 91-day paper when it was last awarded last Aug. 22 stood at 2.070 percent and the 182-day’s at 3.958 percent during the auction last Sept. 27.
Had the auction committee awarded the 364-day T-bill, its rate would have averaged at 5.401 percent.
The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) offered all tenors for PHP5 billion each and only the one-year paper was undersubscribed after tenders reached PHP3.081 billion.
Bids for the 91-day paper reached PHP7.58 billion while it amounted to PHP5.645 billion for the six-month paper.
The auction committee awarded PHP1.27 billion worth of three-month T-bill and PHP2.695 billion worth of six-month paper.
It has been rejecting T-bill tenders for eight weeks now but National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon said the government continues to have the leeway to do this.
“Given good revenue performance, (the government) have latitude to reject should we find rates not reasonable,” she told journalists on Monday.
BTr data show that government revenue collections rose by 28.23 percent year-on-year last August to PHP332.4 billion.
Expenditures posted a lower growth of 6.39 percent to PHP404.5 billion.
This brought the August 2022 budget deficit to PHP72 billion, 40.43 percent lower than year-ago’s PHP120.9 billion gap.
In the first eight months this year, total revenues reached PHP2.368 trillion, up by 18.09 percent compared to the PHP2.005 trillion in end-August 2021.
Government spending still posted a lower expansion of 8.02 percent to PHP3.201 trillion.
Budget gap as of end-August this year stood at PHP833 billion, 13.06 percent lower compared to the same period last year. (PNA)
