: The potential sales will help create a benchmark for corporate borrowers, according to Business Week. They may also be a boon for investment bankers after bond issuances in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council dropped by 34 per cent this year to $15.2 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg show. With oil prices tumbling and the kingdom burning through currency reserves at a record pace, economists from Bank of America Merrill Lynch to Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank expect authorities to start raising money through the local bond market to cover a widening budget deficit. At the moment, they’re tapping their reserves and it certainly something you could see coming, said Monica Malik, chief economist at ADCB in Abu Dhabi. The world biggest oil exporter hasn’t sold securities with a maturity of more than 12 months for eight years as it used the windfall from crude exports to slash its debt to gross domestic product ratio to less than 2 per cent. You’d expect a gradual build-up in debt.
(news.financializer.com). As
reported in the news.
Tagged under , bond market topics.