The Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam are competing to be among the first Asian governments to sell foreign-currency bonds in 2010, as a global economic recovery supports investor appetite for emerging-market debt, reports Bloomberg. Indonesia plans to sell as much as $4 billion of U.S. dollar bonds with 10- and 30-year maturities, a person familiar with the matter said today. The Philippines is preparing to sell as much as $1.5 billion of debt denominated in dollars or euros, while Vietnam plans to raise as much as $1 billion in dollar bonds this month, according to people aware of the plans. “There's appetite for high-yielders,” said Michael Pisler, an emerging-market debt trader at SJS Markets Ltd. in Hong Kong. “The biggest determining factor will be fund inflows into the region as the economies improve.” The difference in yield to own bonds in developing countries instead of Treasuries dropped 4.16 percentage points last year to 2.74 percentage points, according to an index compiled by JPMorgan Chase & Co. Global funds bought more than $8 billion of emerging-market debt in 2009, after pulling out $18 billion in 2008, according to data published by EPFR Global. The government may sell global bonds through a placement “when the time is right,” Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said in Jakarta today, without giving details. Indonesia hired Barclays Capital Plc, Citigroup Inc. and Credit Suisse Group AG for a sale, a ministry official said last month. Indonesia, Southeast Asia's biggest economy, last sold $3 billion of bonds in overseas markets in February, and raised $650 million from the sale of Islamic dollar bonds in April. The government plans to raise $11 billion from local and overseas bond sales in 2010 to finance a budget deficit forecast at 98 trillion rupiah ($10.4 billion), or 1.6 percent of gross domestic product. Indonesia's budget deficit totaled 87.2 trillion rupiah last year, less than a forecast 129.8 trillion rupiah, the Finance Ministry said on Jan. 1. The economy probably grew 4.3 percent to 4.4 percent last year, the ministry said. Moody's Investors Service lifted Indonesia's foreign- currency debt ratings one level to Ba2 on Sept. 16, citing the economy's resilience. The Moody's rating is two levels below investment grade.
