MUSCAT: Oman’s central bank has issued treasury bills worth OMR901 million this year through a tender. The treasury bills were issued for a maturity period of 28 days, from July 20 until August 16, 2016. The average accepted price reached 99.959 for every OMR100, while the minimum accepted price arrived at 99.955 per OMR100. The average discount rate and the average yield reached 0.53695 per cent and 0.53717 per cent, respectively.
The treasury bills are short-term highly secured financial instruments issued by the CBO on behalf of the Government, which helps the licensed commercial banks to gainfully invest their surplus funds, with added advantage of ready liquidity through discounting and repurchase facilities (Repo) offered by the Central Bank of Oman.
Further, the treasury bills promote the local money market by creating a benchmark yield curve for short-term interest rates. Additionally, the government may resort to this instrument whenever felt necessary for financing its recurrent expenditures. The interest rate on the repo operations with CBO is 1 per cent for the period betweenJuly 19 and 25, while the discount rate on the treasury bills discounting facility with CBO is 1.75 per cent, for the same period.
