Briefs
Play
Bt20 bn savings bonds planned
The Public Debt Management Office will launch Bt20 billion worth of savings bonds next month with five- and 10-year maturities to offset the budget deficit and satisfy market demand.
The coupon rates are expected to be close to the market averages at 1.44 per cent for five-year bonds and 1.72 per cent for 10-year bonds.
“The savings bonds will have the lowest coupon rates in history,” said Suwit Rojanavanich, director-general of the PDMO. “Anyone [can] purchase either maturity at any amount but no more than Bt20 billion in total.”
He noted that interest rates were on a downward trend, with several countries adopting a negative-rate policy.
Chevron's Myanmar stakes up for sale
US oil and gas major Chevron Corp has put all of its Myanmar gas-block stakes up for sale, which at a combined likely valuation of US$1.3 billion (Bt45 billion) would be the biggest deal involving Myanmar assets to date, financial sources familiar with the matter said.
The sale, part of Chevron’s efforts to preserve cash and retreat from non-core assets in the wake of sliding oil prices, is seen as setting the tone for future deals in a country that is opening up for business after historic elections last year.
San Ramon, California-based Chevron is working with a US investment bank on the deal, the sources said, declining to be identified as the sale process had not been made public.
Chevron, which has been operating in Myanmar for about two decades, declined to comment.
It owns 28.3 per cent of the Yadana and Sein gas fields operated by France’s Total SA in the Andaman Sea, which mostly supplies power plants in Thailand and also has a stake in the pipeline company that transports the gas to the Thai border. Some of the gas is also supplied to Myanmar.
In addition, it has a 99-per-cent stake in exploration Block A5 in the promising Rakhine Basin, an area where Woodside Petroleum has recently discovered gas.
Chevron’s net daily natural gas production in Myanmar last year averaged 117 million cubic feet.
Chevron is also seeking buyers for its Asian geothermal-energy blocks valued at about $3 billion, sources familiar with matter have said. – Reuters
IFC backs Myanmar port
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, is helping to improve Myanmar’s underdeveloped transport sector by providing US$40 million (Bt1.4 billion) of financing to Myanmar Industrial Port, one of two major container ports in the country.
MIP is a key trade gateway that handles more than 300,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) annually or 40 per cent of the country’s container traffic.
The mezzanine financing is the first phase of a $200-million financing package that is expected to include $160 million in long-term senior loans to be provided by IFC and other foreign lenders. The financing package is to help the company increase capacity and efficiency at its container terminal in central Yangon, the commercial capital of Myanmar.
E-bidding saves costs
The Comptroller-General’s Department says e-bidding for procurement saved the state budget 10.55 per cent or about Bt28.73 billion from October 1, 2015, to March 31, 2016. In the period, a total of 28,202 projects recorded actual procurement of Bt243.54 billion, compared with the budget Bt272.27 billion.
E-markets for public projects also saved 18.35 per cent or Bt50 billion.
“E-bidding and e-markets have been used for state procurement in order to enhance efficiency of the nation’s state spending, increase project transparency and boost private-sector competitiveness,” said Manas Jamveha, comptroller-general. The procurement results and contracts are also registered.
TU wins award
Thai Union Group announced yesterday that HSBC and TU had been recognised for “Asia’s Best Treasury and Finance Strategies” in the Best Forecasting Strategy category in the fourth annual “Corporate Treasurer Awards”.
The presentation ceremony for the 2015 awards, hosted in Singapore, was part of the CT Week conference that brought together hundreds of the region’s top treasurers and chief financial officers.
