The Philippine bond market grew faster in the first quarter versus the previous three-month period as the government frontloaded its borrowings, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said on Wednesday.
The country’s outstanding bonds grew by 3.1% quarter on quarter to PHP 11.5 trillion or USD 212 billion in the first three months of the year from PHP 11.2 trillion or USD 201 billion, the ADB’s Asia Bond Monitor report showed.
The Philippines recorded the third-fastest quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) bond market growth in the period among emerging East Asian markets, behind Vietnam’s 5.1% and Indonesia’s 3.5%.
Year on year, the Philippine bond market grew by 9.8%.
“The LCY (local currency) q-o-q growth was driven by an expansion of government bonds amid increased issuances driven by the government’s frontloading policy. On the other hand, corporate bonds contracted 2.2% q-o-q as maturities exceeded issuances in Q1 2023,” the ADB said.
The report showed that outstanding Treasury and other government bonds stood at USD 173 billion at end-March, up by 3.4% from the quarter earlier.
Central bank papers likewise grew by 15.8% quarter on quarter to USD 10 billion, while corporate bonds declined by 2.2% to USD 29 billion.
Treasury and other government bonds made up 81.6% of the country’s outstanding debt stock as of end-March, while corporate bonds and central bank securities accounted for 13.6% and 4.8%, respectively.
Meanwhile, gross bond issuances in the Philippines went up by 24.7% quarter on quarter and 10.9% year on year to USD 50 billion (PHP 2.7 trillion) in January-March 2023.
“The Philippines’ total LCY bond issuance in Q1 2023 expanded 24.7% q-o-q to reach PHP 2.7 trillion, buoyed by the government’s issuance of retail Treasury bonds (RTBs) in February… Treasury and other government bonds accounted for 34.8% of all LCY bonds issued during the quarter,” the ADB said.
“In contrast, corporate bond issuance contracted 81.7% q-o-q in Q1 2023 amid higher interest rates. Corporate bond issuance reached PHP 23.3 billion during the quarter and comprised a 0.9% share of the issuance total. Central bank securities comprised the largest share of fixed-income securities issuance in the Philippine LCY bond market in Q1 2023, accounting for 64.3% of the total quarterly issuance volume,” it added.
It said the banking, property, and holding firms sectors dominated the Philippine corporate bond market in the period as they accounted for 80.6% of total outstanding corporate bonds at end-March.
“Among corporate issuers, only property firms and holding firms posted a q-o-q decline in their respective market shares during the quarter. The transport and telecommunications sectors remained the smallest issuers of corporate bonds with marginal market shares of less than 1.0% each at the end of Q1 2023,” the ADB said.
Meanwhile, the emerging East Asian region’s bond market grew by 2.2% to PHP 23.8 trillion in the first quarter from the prior three-month period.
“Growth was largely driven by increased issuance from the public sector. Government bonds accounted for 61.9% of the region’s outstanding LCY bonds at the end of March,” the ADB said.
“The annual growth of the region’s LCY bonds outstanding exceeded that of the United States (5.7%) and the European Union 20 (EU-20) (2.9%). In terms of overall size, emerging East Asian LCY bond market surpassed that of the EU-20 in 2020 and reached the equivalent of 66.0% of the US bond market at the end of March 2023,” it added. — AMCS. Photo by BusinessWorld.
This article originally appeared on bworldonline.com