Malta bucks the trend among southern eurozone countries finding no difficulty in raising millions of euros on the market with the latest tranche of government stock being oversubscribed by more than €171 million.
In three offers that closed on Wednesday and yesterday, members of the public and financial institutions submitted bids am-ounting to almost €400 million for a government bond allotment of almost €168 million.
Finance Minister Tonio Fenech said the substantial interest in Malta government stock was a sign of investor confidence in the country’s fiscal stability.
“This is very different from what is happening in some eurozone countries like Greece, Italy and Spain where governments are finding it hard to borrow,” Mr Fenech said, adding that al-though Malta’s debt stood at 69 per cent of GDP it was still “manageable”.
In debt-ridden eurozone countries, governments have had to offer higher interest rates on bonds to attract investors but this, in turn, increases the cost to service the debt and forces governments to adopt austerity measures.
The government stocks included two fixed interest rate issues for €144 million and one floating rate stock option for €24 million. The fixed interest rate options attracted 5,525 applications with a nominal value exceeding €295 million. The authorised sum on issue was €100 million, subject to an over-allotment option of €44 million.
The Treasury Department said all subscriptions by members of the public amounting to €134 million would be accepted in full.
The authorised sum for the floating interest rate option that closes in 2014 was €24 million and 11 bids with a value of €44.5 million were received.
The bids will be allotted by auction.