February 28 (SeeNews) - Croatia has placed three tranches of government bonds worth a combined 15 billion kuna ($2.2 billion/ 2.0 billion euro), in order to repay debt that will mature next week, finance minister Zdravko Maric said.
The average achieved interest rate on the new debt is around 1.0%, Maric said in a statement on Wednesday when the bonds were placed.
In particular, Croatia placed a 5 billion kuna issue of five-year debt, yielding 0.38%, a 4 million kuna euro-indexed issue of 14-year debt with a 1.12% yield, and a maiden 20-year bond worth 800 million euro ($881 million), which is the country's longest maturity of issued debt so far, yielding 1.28%, Maric said.
On March 5, Croatia has to repay two domestic bonds issued in 2010 and worth 1.0 billion euro and 5.0 billion kuna, respectively, or an overall 12.5 billion kuna. The first bond was sold at 6.75% interest rate and the second at an interest rate of 6.50%, according to the statement.
(1 euro = 7.46288 kuna)