RIYADH: Oman issued treasury bills totaling 27 million rials ($70.1 million) this week for varying maturity periods, with a 0.1 percent decrease compared to the previous seven days. Last week, the Central Bank of Oman issued treasury bills worth 27.05 million rials, marking the continuation of such issuances for the past several weeks as the country’s Finance Ministry in January predicted a budget deficit of around 1.3 billion rials in 2023. The central bank, which acts as the issue manager for such debt instruments, said that the latest issuances are split into two tranches with varying maturity periods. In a statement on Tuesday, the bank explained that the bills with a value of 5 million rials are allocated for a maturity period of 28 days, with an average acceptable price of 99.66 rials, a slight difference when compared to the 99.67 rials price recorded last week. The remaining bills worth 22 million rials carry a maturity period of 91 days. The bank said the average accepted price for this issuance reached 98.74 for every 100 rials, while the minimum accepted price arrived at 98.71 rials. “The average discount rate and the average yield reached 5.05202 percent and 5.11649 percent, respectively,” it said in a press release. The bank added: “It may be noted that the interest rate on the repo operations with CBO is 6 percent while the discount rate on the treasury bills discounting facility with CBO is 6.5 percent.” Following the US Federal Reserve’s decision last week to raise its key policy rate by 25 basis points, the CBO also increased its repo rate for local banks at a similar rate to 6 percent. The central bank said that its monetary policy’s target is to sustain and maintain its fixed exchange rate. “This policy is aligned with the structure and nature of the Omani economy. There are a number of advantages for the Sultanate that are derived from this policy among which are stability of the Omani rial, mitigation of capital outflow, and promoting certainty among investors by removing exchange rate risk,” the bank said last week. Widely regarded as low-risk and secure investments, treasury bills are issued by the central bank to promote the local money market by creating a benchmark yield curve for short-term interest rates. “The government may also resort to this instrument whenever felt necessary for financing its recurrent expenditures,” the bank stated.