MANILA, June 19 (Xinhua) -- An Asian Development Bank (ADB) report released on Wednesday said the Philippines local currency bond market was the second-fastest growing market in emerging East Asia in the first quarter of 2019, posting growth of 8.0 percent in local currency terms to 125.4 billion U.S. dollars, faster than the 5.3 percent on-quarter growth in the fourth quarter of 2018.
The latest Asia Bond Monitor, ADB's quarterly report on the emerging East Asia bond market, said the growth was boosted by government bond sales.
"The (Philippine) government took advantage of improved market sentiment and issued nearly triple the amount of bonds in the first quarter, 674.7 billion U.S. dollars, compared to the fourth quarter of 2018," the quarterly report said.
The report said the sales are part of the government's plan to borrow 1.2 trillion pesos (roughly 23 billion U.S. dollars) in 2019 to support increased social services and infrastructure spending.
As of the end of March 2019, the report said the Philippines had 26.0 billion U.S. dollars in corporate bonds outstanding, an increase of 5.4 percent on-quarter in local currency terms.
Indonesia is the fastest growing bond market with 8.7 percent growth, while Singapore came third with 4.2 percent. China posted a 3 percent growth.
The Manila-based ADB launched its latest quarterly report on the emerging East Asia bond market, including Philippines, looking at the developments in the bond market during the first quarter of 2019.
Emerging East Asia's local currency bond market grew 2.9 percent quarter-on-quarter and 14.0 percent year-on-year at the end of March 2019.
