February 13 (SeeNews) - Serbia is considering the issuance of Chinese yuan-denominated financial instruments to finance public debt, finance minister Sinisa Mali has said.
The government is looking into the option of issuing a green bond on domestic or international markets in 2021 and Chinese yuan-denominated securities in the coming years, Mali said in a statement on Wednesday.
Serbia’s local currency bonds, in turn, may be included on the widely tracked JPMorgan Government Bond Index Emerging Markets (GBI-EM) in the coming two months after making it onto the index provider’s watchlist, Mali said.
The Serbian government plans to borrow 2 billion euro ($2.2 billion) through the sale of government securities on international markets in 2020. The borrowing through the issuance of domestic government debt is planned at about 312 billion dinars ($2.9 billion/2.7 billion euro), Mali added.
In 2017, former finance minister Dusan Vujovic said Serbia may finance its public debt at low cost via financial instruments in yuan.
"First of all, I think the panda bonds would enable Serbia to finance its debt and to continue reducing not only the debt to GDP ratio but also the cost of borrowing," Vujovic said back then.
($ = 0.918697 euro)