GOVERNMENT BONDS FOR THE POPULATION "The final lap" has been extended for Lucian Anghel

Lucian Anghel, the president of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, who was saying, in summer, that the issue of Government bonds for the population has entered "the final lap", yesterday said that he hoped the announcement of the first issue of government bonds dedicated to individual investors, with a low price of 1,000 lei, would be made this year.

According to him, the completion of this project no longer depends in any way on the BSE group. "We have completed everything that needed to be done, all that is left are technical aspects, that no longer depend on the BSE", he said.

The technical aspects that the president of the BSE is referring to are the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance, where things may take a while.

Enache Jiru, state secretary in the Ministry of Finance, told us: "We are currently working on a draft government decision for amending the norms for the application of law of public debt, which is currently in the internal validation stage. And then, the norms need to go through a government meeting, perhaps even the next one. In doing so we establish the procedure for the listing of the government bonds on the regulated markets, which presents the steps that need to be followed. An intermediary will need to be selected, the procedure is similar to that of Eurobonds. The amount has to be decided through a ministerial order".

When asked if there is a chance of a government bonds issue for the population happening by the end of the year, like Lucian Anghel wants, Enache Jiru told us: "Theoretically, there is a chance of that happening".

The Ministry of Finance suspended the issuing of treasury certificates for the population in January 2005. Since then, the state has been periodically holding government bonds issues, but they are no longer being sold directly to the population, but to banks. Ten years ago, the population could buy treasury certificates with a 90-days maturity and an interest rate of 13.5% a year, or with an 180-days maturity for an interest rate of 14.5%. In 2005, the interest rate for term deposits was about 12.5% a year, (and was set by adding a fixed rate to the inflation rate), which meant that placing savings in government bonds was a more profitable option than bank deposits.

On the interbank market, the government sells bonds that have a face value of 10,000 lei.