Treasury's Debt Management Office saw good demand for short-term government debt this afternoon, selling off NZ$300 million in bills for debt maturing in less than a year.
There was NZ$630 million worth of offers for NZ$200 million of bills maturing on September 21, sold at a weighted average successful yield of 2.50%.
There was NZ$155 million of bids for NZ$100 million of bills maturing on December 21, sold at an average yield of 2.65%. Finally, there were NZ$200 million worth of offers for NZ$100 million of June 20 bills, sold at an average yield of 2.85%.
The yields were all down a couple of basis points from a previous bill auction at the end of May. At that auction bids totalling only NZ$250 million were accepted for NZ$300 million of bills offered.
Treasury's Debt Management Office said at the end of May that demand for Treasury bills had generally been falling since the global financial crisis, while there had been an increase in demand for bonds - debt maturing beyond a year.
There had been on-off demand for bills in recent months, the DMO said.
The government is auctioning NZ$20 billion of bonds in the current financial year to June 30, to cover a NZ$16.7 billion deficit before gains and losses, and to pre-fund some of next year's projected NZ$9.7 billion deficit.
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