BEIJING (Reuters) – China will launch an issuance of overseas dollar sovereign bonds late on Tuesday, and the size will exceed the $3 billion raised last year, an official at China’s finance ministry said on Tuesday.
“The size of issuance will surpass that of previous years,” the official told Reuters.
The ministry will release more information on the sovereign bond issuance, which will help improve China’s offshore bond yield curve, the official said.
China’s government has mandated 13 investment banks to lead a U.S. dollar sovereign bond deal, according to a term sheet seen by Reuters, its third since its international debt issuance program was revived two years ago.
Final pricing for the three-, five-, 10- and 20-year tranches will be 35, 40, 50 and 70 basis points above U.S. Treasuries of the same tenors, on order books over $20 billion, according to Refinitiv capital markets news service IFR.
It would be the third transaction since 2017 when China launched its first U.S. dollar bond in 13 years. The 2017 deal raised $2 billion while a separate transaction in 2018 raised another $3 billion.
China sold its first euro-denominated bond in 15 years earlier in November, raising $4.4 billion and analysts believe the European markets will become a greater source of funds for the mainland in the future.
(Reporting by Kevin Yao, additional reporting by Noah Sin, Yoruk Bahceli in London; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
