Finance Ministry gets 940m euros from banks, pays 4.89% yield

The Finance Ministry yesterday sold euro-denominated bonds with a three-year maturity worth 939.2 million euros, paying an average 4.89%, nearly 0.1% more than in November 2010, when they issued government bonds worth over 1.3 billion euros with the same maturity.

This time, the targeted amount was 600 million euros, which compares with 1 billion euros last autumn. Although in the meantime the CDS level for Romania (the cost of insurance against the risk of default) has fallen by nearly half a percentage point, the increase of the euro reference rate countered this favourable effect. The new precautionary arrangement with the IMF and the downward trend of the budget deficit did not have a positive impact on the cost of state funding against last year, either.

"The CDS decline was offset by the increase in the reference interest, so the price remained relatively unchanged for this maturity. I think the amount attracted is very satisfactory, all the more since big banks are no longer required to keep their exposures on Romania," comments Marius Stoica, director of BRD-SocGen's treasury.