Pimco Says Investors to Focus on Asian Bonds on Rate Cuts

Investors should focus on Asia’s local currency debt as China’s slowdown may push neighboring countries to cut rates, according to Pacific Investment Management Co., the manager of the world’s biggest bond fund.

Local-currency bond sales in Asia jumped 25 percent to $188.4 billion this year compared with the same period in 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Pimco more than doubled its team of portfolio managers and credit analysts in Singapore and Hong Kong to 13 over the past 18 months, Ramin Toloui, the global co-head of emerging markets portfolio management, said in an interview in Singapore on Oct. 16.