Opec member Venezuela will issue $3 billion in new bonds later this year and has paid up a $1.5 billion tranche of maturing debt, a senior Central Bank official was quoted as telling a state newspaper on Saturday. Bank director Armando Leon said Venezuela paid the maturing Global 10 bonds on Friday. "Those payments made space for new issues," he told Correo del Orinoco.
Leon's comments confirmed widespread market expectations of an imminent $3 billion issue to feed unmet dollar demand. But there is still uncertainty over when President Hugo Chavez's government will make the new placement. Leon gave no more details of the date, but told Correo del Orinoco that the $3 billion tranche would be placed through his institution's new currency exchange system, Sitme, which has replaced a former unregulated forex market.
Sitme uses a complicated formula, based on dollar-denominated bond prices, to fix what is essentially a third band in Venezuela's state-controlled forex market. The government has budgetary authorisation to issue $4.5 billion of bonds this year, the bank director added. Some Wall Street analysts, and one government economic source, said this week that the $3 billion issue could be very soon, possibly even next week. PDVSA is the state oil company.
Comments
Comments are closed.