The federal government, in the fifth auction in a row, rejected all the bids for PIBs Thursday. Mainly, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) conducts one auction every month and this was the fifth auction in a row, in which all bids were rejected by the government. Previously, the federal government has not borrowed a single penny through PIBs auctions conducted in August, September, October and November.

During this fiscal year, some Rs 52.4 billion were raised through the sale of PIBs in July 2017. Analysts said that overall, bids remained on the lower side; therefore, federal government decided not to borrow and hence, rejected all the bids. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Wednesday conducted the auction for PIBs for

3-, 5-, 10-, and 20-year maturity to raise some Rs 50 billion for the federal government to meet its rising financial requirements. Participation was very thin in the auction and overall, bids worth Rs 6.124 billion with total realized value of Rs 6.442 billion were received for the sale of 3-year, 5-year and 10-year long-term government securities. No bid was received for 20-year PIBs.

Most of the bids were received for 3-year variety. The 3-year long-term papers fetched bids amounting to Rs 3.624 billion (total realized value). Some Rs 527.5 million bids were submitted for 5-year bonds and Rs 2.9 billion worth bids were received for 10-year PIBs.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2017