CNPC to Issue Dollar-Denominated Bonds

Market, page 19
Original article: [Chinese]

China's state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the country's largest oil company, would issue three-year dollar-denominated bonds in China in the near future, the Economic Observer learned.

The bonds would be worth about 1 billion US dollars and would be underwritten by the Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of China.

It was the first time that China had allowed a non-financial institution to issue dollar-denominated bonds, and comes after the central bank decided at a meeting earlier this year that it would innovate debt financing products.

Before this, only the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China had issued such bonds in China.

China Development Bank issued 200 million US dollar in two-year dollar-denominated bonds late last year. As of now, the dollar-denominated bonds issued by domestic institutions totaled some 52 billion US dollars.

Sources from Agricultural Bank of China said that now was a good time to issue US dollar-denominated bonds thanks to low interest rates and a relatively stable exchange rate between the Renminbi and the US dollar.

The EO learned that banks were the most popular buyers of these US dollar bonds, and apart from the CNPC, other large central-owned enterprises with extensive international businesses also intended to issue such bonds.