Economics
Ruble Bond Market Grows as Belarus Pioneers Sale: Russia Credit
This article is for subscribers only.
Belarus will become the first country outside Russia to sell bonds denominated in rubles as the government seeks to attract investors from its biggest trading partner and borrow at cheaper rates than in U.S. dollars.
The former Soviet state plans to offer as much as 15 billion rubles ($489 million) of securities this month, according to OAO Sberbank, Russia’s biggest lender. Borrowing in rubles may save Belarus about 2.5 percentage points in annual interest compared with debt in dollars, said Nikolay Podguzov, the head of fixed-income strategy at VTB Capital in Moscow.