The central bank in Africa’s second largest copper producer, Zambia, on Thursday 04 July sold 23% of its K950 million offering in treasury bills at cost. The haircut on subscription was weighed by tight market liquidity. The Bank of Zambia raised K215.47 million (at cost) with the 3 and 9 month tenors recording the highest appetite of K79.66 million and K71.96 million respectively.
Yields remain elevated across the term structure of interest rates with the one year t-bill rate earning 26.5% as the 3 and 9 months yielded 16.50% and 25.25% respectively.
Thursday’s undersubscription marks the thirteenth haircut the BOZ is taking year to date of the fourteen short term debt sales it has undertaken. The central bank has been in open market operations all week to plug the net short position created by Kwacha demand to fund tax flows in the period.
Compiled by Kondwani Phiri.