A $200 million government bond to be issued this year will trial the country’s bond market and flag up any obstacles or shortages in the process, a senior economic official said, adding it will set a benchmark for future corporate bonds.
“The reason that we issue the bond is, in reality, we don't really need money much, we want to test the system of our sovereign bond market,” Vongsey Vissoth, Permanent Secretary of State at the Ministry of Economy and Finance and Minister attached to the Prime Minister, said at a public forum on Wednesday.
Vissoth confirmed that the trial will serve as a pilot to see how the process works, identify any obstacles and to set a benchmark for corporate bonds in the future.
“Our other long-term goal is that we want to diversify the risk of our debt, so that we don’t depend externally too much, but depend locally,” he said.
Locally, there is a lot of potential with institutional investors, such as in pension funds, insurance and companies, Vissoth said.
