Pakistan to issue 30-year government bond

KARACHI, Nov 27 (Reuters) Pakistan plans to issue a 30-year government investment bond and the new paper will be sold for the first time at the next long-term bond auction, a senior finance official said on Monday.

''A decision to float the 30-year PIB (Pakistan Investment Bond) has been taken and it will be sold in the next auction alongside other PIBs,'' Ashfaque Hasan Khan, director general of the finance ministry's debt office, told Reuters.

Khan said the schedule for the next PIB auction had not been finalised but it was likely to be before the end of this year.

To date, the government has sold PIBs of three-, five-, 10-, 15- and 20-year maturities.

Khan did not say what coupon would be set for the 30-year paper, but banking sources said it was likely to be 11 percent.

The current three-, five-and 10-year PIBs carry annual coupon rates of 9.1, 9.3 and 9.6 percent respectively, while the 15- and 20-year PIBs have coupons of 10 and 10.5 percent respectively. Pakistan launched its first long-term PIBs in December 2000 to tap institutional investment and set a benchmark for corporate bond yields.

The last PIB auction was on Oct. 30 when the State Bank of Pakistan sold 14.72 billion rupees ($242.3 million) worth of long-term bonds.

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