By Stella Mapenzauswa

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa is under no pressure to issue a new global bond as proceeds from a well-subscribed sale in January will meet its foreign commitments in the first few months of the next fiscal year, Treasury Director-General Lungisa Fuzile said on Wednesday.

Treasury was also "highly unlikely" to alter issuance levels at its weekly local bond auctions despite the introduction of five new bonds, Fuzile told Reuters after release of this year's budget.

If there was any change, it was likely to be down, he said.

South Africa issued a $1.5 billion, 12-year global bond with a coupon of 4.665 percent in January that attracted bids totalling $3 billion, mainly from investors from Europe and the United States

The Treasury said on Wednesday it intended to borrow another $3 billion in global markets over the medium term to maintain benchmarks in major currencies and meet part of its foreign currency commitments, but did not give dates.

"We have already pre-funded a portion of what is our foreign commitments for next year of $1.5 billion," Fuzile said. "In terms of our cash flow we now have enough to see us through the first months of the financial year 2012/13 starting from April."

"As and when we see an opportunity in the market, stability, stable yields and lower yields, we will take the advantage and issue, but we are not under pressure at all."

A lower-than-expected budget deficit forecast of 4.6 percent for 2012/13 initially boosted government bonds, but they later gave up gains on market scepticism about whether the targets were attainable.

"The growth that we are looking at in terms of our economy of 2.7 percent is very close to market consensus, " Fuzile said.

"And it is nominal growth which determines how much revenue we'll be able to collect, so it is on that basis that we are forecasting a deficit of 4.6 percent next year."

He added that Treasury was not looking to change issuance levels at weekly auctions, where it has been selling roughly 2.1 billion rand worth of paper to primary dealers.

"We might change a bit the composition of what we issue in so far as inflation-linked bonds versus fixed income bonds ... but besides that the issuance is going to stay stable," Fuzile said. "If anything, as we move forward it might decrease,"

He reiterated the Treasury did not target a level for the rand, but welcomed the calm that appears to have returned to currency markets after extreme volatility last year caused by the euro zone's debt problems.

2012-02-23 08:02:02




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