A record 5.79 trillion yuan (US$724 billion) worth of bonds were issued in China this year, almost a third up on last year, the Shanghai Securities Journal reported Wednesday.

 

Sixty-three percent of the total value came from central bank bills, which were released to commercial banks to draw currency from the lenders and curb excessive liquidity.

 

The bills were worth 3.65 trillion yuan, about 30 percent up from last year, the newspaper cited the data from WIND Info, a leading financial data provider in China.

 

Another 2.15 trillion yuan was raised on the bond market, an annual growth of 32.59 percent.

 

Meanwhile, bond issuers saw their costs fall, as excessive liquidity drove the interest rate level of the bond market down.

 

Book-entry treasury bonds with maturity terms of more than five years, most of China's bond issue, saw their average interest rate level drop nearly 60 basis points year on year.

 

Treasury bonds accounted for 15.33 percent of the total issue, with the value surging 26.15 percent to 888.3 billion yuan this year, compared with a rise of 1.7 percent last year.

 

Bonds issued by financial institutions ranked third at 849.57 billion yuan, 31.95 percent up from last year, taking up 14.66 percent of the total value.

 

Of the total issue, 6.77 percent were bonds issued by enterprises, which raised nearly 400 billion yuan in the bond market, a rise of 86.5 percent from last year.

 

(Xinhua News Agency December 28, 2006)