A total of 36.32 billion yuan of 15-year special treasury bonds will be on sale from Saturday, the third batch of 200 billion yuan in treasury bonds to be made available to the general public.

The Chinese Ministry of Finance announced on Friday that the new batch of bonds, on offer from September 29 and October 9, will have an annual yield of 4.55 percent, and will be tradable from October 12 through the national inter-bank bond market and stock markets.

Interest will be paid every half-year, said the ministry in a statement.

Individual investors can trade the bonds through the pilot commercial banks -- branches of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China and China Construction Bank.

The ministry announced on September 10 that it would issue 200 billion yuan in special treasury bonds as part of a plan to raise 1.55 trillion yuan to fund the country's new foreign exchange investment firm.

The special treasury bonds will be issued in two groups, with the first 100 billion yuan to be issued this month in three phases, while the sale of the remaining 100 billion yuan is scheduled for the fourth quarter.

With the sales of the new batch of bonds, around half of the 200 billion yuan special treasury bonds will have been issued to the general public.

The ministry launched the first batch of 15-year special treasury bonds valuing 31.97 billion yuan on Sept. 18, and the second batch of 35.09 billion yuan on Sept. 24.

In June, China's legislature approved the issuance of 1.55 trillion yuan of special treasury bonds by the Ministry of Finance to buy 200 billion US dollars of the foreign exchange reserve for a state forex investment firm to better use the country's huge foreign exchange reserves. Sources said the firm is expected to debut within this week.

At the end of August, the ministry issued 600 billion yuan of special treasury bonds targeting the country's commercial banks with an annual interest rate of 4.3 percent.

(Xinhua News Agency September 29, 2007)