Govt targets November Parliament for bond programme

Envisioned by the February budget, the programme - through which government borrows from the capital market - was originally targeted at plugging the 2010/11 budget deficit, forecast at P12.1 billion. However, thanks to its wide-ranging spending cuts across the budget, Government was able to create elbowroom in which to thrash out the proposed bond programme.

This week, highly placed government sources told BusinessWeek that with the finalisation of the P5-billion 2008 bond programme on Wednesday, a new schedule was being prepared for approval by the November Parliament.