Government bond (G-bond) issues have been restructured in a healthier manner and become a good vehicle for State finance, as it helps reduce the pressure on public debt repayments, said minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung at a National Assembly meeting on May 26.
Dung said the terms of G-bonds changed dramatically from an average of 3.9 years in 2011 to 12.7 years in 2017. Such a change helped increase the average debt tenor of G-bonds to 6.7 years in 2017 from the previous 1.8 years.
The borrowing cost has also decreased strongly from 12.1 percent to 5.9 percent annually. “It is easier to sell G-bonds at low coupons now,” he stressed, adding that owing to G-bonds, the government was able to cut the proportion of foreign loans from 61 percent in 2011 to around 40 percent in late 2017.
Notably, G-bond buyers have also become more diverse. Holdings by banks decreased to 53.06 percent in 2017 from a staggering 78 percent in 2016, while the ratio of securities and insurance companies rose to 45.9 percent from the 2016 figure of 19.7 percent.
Such major adjustments in debt structure, debt terms, and creditors significantly eased the debt repayment pressure on the overstretched State budget.
As such, budget overspending and public debts were closely managed in the past two years. Especially, G-bond issues were in line with actual disbursement process.
The rate of public debt hikes has slowed to the current 9.6 percent from the annually average of 18.1 percent in the 2011-2015 period.
Public debts as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) saw a decline of 2.2 percentage points, from 63.6 percent in late 2016 to 61.4 percent in late 2017. Therefore, government debts fell from 52.6 percent of GDP to 51.8 percent of GDP respectively, the minister said.
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