March 28 (SeeNews) - Romania has 'successfully' raised 3.0 billion euro ($3.4 billion) through the sale of Eurobonds amidst strong demand, finance minister Eugen Teodorovici said.
"Today the Eurobonds were issued, there are still some procedures ongoing and then we will announce details on the structure of investors. We reached a 8.7 billion euro demand and this means our economy is trustworthy," Teodorovici told local TV station Digi24 over the phone late on Wednesday.
"We chose to ask for 3 billion euro, because that is our current financing need, but anyway, we had where to choose from, as the offer was oversubscribed, which is very important. The issue was a success."
Teodorovici also said that the borrowing costs would have been higher if the ministry had announced the sale of Eurobonds earlier.
According to Teodorovici, part of the Eurobonds placed on Wednesday have a maximum maturity of 30 years.
"Romania has managed to emerge today in foreign markets with a very large volume of government securities in euro with different yields and different maturities, the highest being 30 years, which is very much. This shows the confidence that foreign investors have in Romania's economy."
Teodorovici added that Romania will have a budget deficit equivalent to 2.76% of GDP this year, which means roughly 29 billion lei ($6.9 billion/ 6.1 billion euro), which will have to be financed from the market.
According to an announcement published on Wednesday in Romania's official Gazette, the Eurobonds have a minimum maturity of 7 years.
The issue will be managed by Citi, Erste, ING, JP Morgan and Societe Generale, the announcement showed.
No further details were immediately available from the finance ministry on Thursday.
However, according to local media outlet profit.ro, the issuance consisted of three tranches of Eurobonds worth 1.15 billion euro, 500 million euro and 1.35 billion euro and maturity of 7, 15 and 30 years, respectively.
This was Romania's first sale of Eurobonds this year. The finance ministry raised 3.75 billion euro and $1.2 billion through bond sales on international markets in 2018.
($=0.8864 euro)