Treasury bills worth RO 88m issued

MUSCAT: A tender of Government Treasury Bills, issue number 28, was held at the Central Bank of Oman (CBO) this week. The results of issue are as follows: The total value of the allotted Treasury bills amounted to RO 88 million for a maturity period of 28 days from March 15 until April 12. The average accepted price reached 99.958 for every RO 100 while the minimum accepted price arrived at 99.955 per RO 100. The average discount rate and the average yield reached 0.55180 per cent and 0.55203 per cent respectively. The interest rate on the Repo operations with CBO is 1.412 per cent for the period from 14/3/2017 to 20/3/2017 while the discount rate on the Treasury Bills Discounting Facility with CBO is 2.162 per cent for the same period.

The Treasury Bills are short-term highly secured financial instruments issued by the CBO on behalf of the government, which helps the licensed commercial banks to gainfully invest their surplus funds, with added advantage of ready liquidity through discounting and repurchase facilities (Repo) offered by the Central Bank. Furthermore, the Treasury Bills promote the local money market by creating a benchmark yield curve for short-term interest rates. Additionally, the government (MOF) may also resort to this instrument whenever felt necessary for financing its recurrent expenditures. — ONA