A tender of the government treasury bills (issue number 526) was held at the Central Bank of Oman (CBO) this week. The total value of the allotted treasury bills amounted to RO72mn. The treasury bills have been issued for a maturity period of 91 days, from October 21, 2020 until January 20, 2021. The average accepted price reached RO99.801 for every RO100 bill, while the minimum accepted price arrived at RO99.8. The average discount rate and the average yield reached 0.7963 per cent and 0.7979 per cent, respectively.

 The interest rate on the repo operations with the CBO is 0.5 per cent, while the discount rate on the treasury bills discounting facility with the CBO is 1 per cent. 

Treasury bills are short-term highly secured financial instruments issued by the Central Bank of Oman on behalf of the sultanate’s government. These financial instruments help the licensed commercial banks to gainfully invest their surplus funds, with an added advantage of ready liquidity through discounting and repurchase facilities offered by the central bank. 

Furthermore, treasury bills 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.