T-bills to be sold to private groups

Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) has made the decision to allow private groups to invest in T-bills.

T-bills are government securities sold by the Central bank to overcome the budget deficit. Currently, only banks, public companies, and the Pension Office are allowed to invest in T-bills.

An official of MMA said today that private groups can make their investments in a week or so, and that the procedures will be announced soon.

Governor of MMA Fazeel Najeeb recently said that a new instrument will be introduced to find a solution to the problem of insufficient foreign currency.

“We hope that the new instrument will solve the problem until the next high tourist season,” Fazeel said.

MMA auctions T-bills once a week. This includes T-bills of maturity dates of 28 days which are sold at 7.16 percent interest, 91 days at 7.21 percent interest, and 182 days at 7.13 percent interest.