Qatar Central Bank issued local treasury bills for February with a value of QR600 million.
The central bank said the bills are “distributed as follows:
- – 300 million QR for three months at an interest rate of 0.12%
- – 200 million QR for six months at an interest rate of 0.15%
- – 100 million QR for nine months at an interest rate of 0.18%.”
Qatar Central bank
Qatar Central Bank seeks, through the issuance of treasury bills, to develop monetary policy. It also aims to increase its effectiveness and contribute to the strength of the banking and financial system.
The move also aims to activate open market tools as one of the monetary policy tools, and implement the coordination mechanism between fiscal and monetary policies.
Qatar Central Bank acts on behalf of the government in issuing permits to activate open market instruments.
The issuance is part of a series of issues executed by Qatar Central Bank on behalf of the Government and in accordance with the schedule prepared by both the central bank and the Ministry of Finance, the central bank said.
Treasury bills
According to the central bank, Treasury Bills are government debt instruments issued with maturities ranging from three months to one year. T-Bills are known as low-risk financial instrument, i.e., they are easy to operate without causing any capital loss to their holders. T-Bills usually sold at discount, i.e. at lower price than its nominal value .
Upon maturity, the government is committed to pay the nominal value of those T-Bills. They are considered one of the monetary policy instruments for domestic liquidity management .
Last December, Qatar Bank issued domestic treasury bills worth 600 million riyals, which were distributed over three terms.
The first term was QR300 million for three months, the second was QR200 million riyals for six months, and the third term was QR100 million for nine months.
The average interest rate was at 0.09%, compared to 10.3% for November.
According to the central bank, the total local treasury bills issued during 2020 amounted to QR7.2 billion.
