18.03.2016

"With this transaction in place Bulgaria has filled its funding requirement for the year and will not be returning to the markets before the end of this year." Deputy Minister of Finance Karina Karaivanova said the above in an interview for Global Capital on the occasion of the successful placement of the EUR 1.994 billion dual tranche bonds which took place on 14 March 2016. She added that the external funding requirement for 2017 would be set in the course of the budgeting process in the autumn of the current year. The Deputy Minister of Finance also said that for future external funding deals our country was not yet looking to diversify its currency of issuance although it had the option to look at other currencies under the GMTN programme of the Republic of Bulgaria. "For the moment we are satisfied with the demand for our name in the euro market, so do not think it is necessary to diversify", Karina Karaivanova was firm.

She pointed out that the quantitative easing measures announced by the Executive Board of the European Central Bank had served as a trigger and our country moved forward with its bond plans. "For the first time this year we used a strategy of printing the deal intraday and without a roadshow, and that enabled us to immediately take advantage of the rally. We would expect that for future bonds, now that investors know us better, we will use a similar strategy going forwards", Karaivanova explained the decision of the issuer. She expressed her satisfaction with the results of the transaction conducted on 14 March as well as with the fact that it was the second year running that Bulgaria printed a successful EUR-denominated bond.