The ministry planned to sell paper worth 500 million lei (EUR111 million) at Monday’s auction. Book orders amounted to RON864.2 million.
At the previous similar auction August 6, the ministry sold RON700 million in one-year treasury bills, at an average yield of 5.66% a year.
Market participants expected the banks to ask for yields of around 6.1%, comparable with the secondary market yields, as Romania’s financing costs soared following the central bank’s decision to cap the amount offered at its weekly repurchasing operations.
Romania sold debt at increasingly lower yields in the first months of 2012, but the trend reversed as the central bank halted a monetary easing cycle, citing uncertainties on external markets and political developments at home.
The Finance Ministry expects to sell RON2.5 billion in debt this month, up from RON1.5 billion sold in July.
So far in 2012, Romania sold RON38.93 billion in leu-denominated state notes and $2.25 billion in US dollar-denominated bonds. (EUR1=RON4.4939)