Interest rates remained relatively stable for the first time since the government announced the launch of the debt exchange programme on December 5, 2022.

The rates, however, sill remained high.

Whilst the 91-day T-bills went for 35.36%, slightly higher than the previous week, the yield on the 182-day was 35.97%. That of the 364-day was 35.89%.

Interest rates failed to go down for the fourth week running due to factors such as reduced investor demand for the short term securities. This is coming after government included individual bondholders in the domestic debt exchange programme.

Following a high inflation of 50.3% recorded in November 2022, interest rates will remain high until the rate of inflation starts slowing or coming down.

Meanwhile, government missed its target for T-bills auction narrowly by about 2.3%.

This is the first time that government missed its target since the launch of the Domestic Debt Exchange programme on December 5, 2022.

The government secured ¢1.86 billion as against a target of ¢1.82 billion.

Chunk of the funds were secured from the 91-days T-bills in which ¢1.13 billion were mobilised. All the bids tendered were accepted

For the 182-day T-bills, ¢510.87 million of the bids were tendered but ¢494.85 million were accepted.  

All the bids worth ¢183.13 million for the one-year bill were however accepted.