Italy's finance ministry on Tuesday unveiled a new type of bond that can be bought easily over the Internet in a bid to encourage more Italians to buy into the country's giant debt mountain. "This is the first sovereign bond indexed to Italian inflation with a quarterly coupon and a maturity of four years that is made especially for the needs of ordinary savers and investors," the ministry said in a statement.
The bonds can be bought online or over the counter at a bank under an agreement with the Milan stock exchange. The first sale will be carried out on March 19-22 and the minimum investment required will be 1,000 euros ($1,300). At the peak of a wave of panic on the financial markets last November, Italy held a special "Bonds Day" in which bank fees for bond sales were lifted in a bid to encourage ordinary Italians to buy up its vulnerable bonds. While market confidence has largely been restored, Italy still has a public debt of 1.9 trillion euros ($2.5 trillion), or 120.1 percent of gross domestic product, and its economy entered recession in the second half of last year.
Comments
Comments are closed.