A tender of the government treasury bills (issue number 539) was announced on Tuesday by the Central Bank of Oman (CBO).

Total value of the allotted treasury bills amounted to RO158.5mn, for a maturity period of 91 days, from today until September 8, 2021. Average accepted price reached RO99.806 for every RO100 bill and minimum accepted price arrived at RO99.805, the CBO said in a statement.

Average discount rate and the average yield reached 0.7770 per cent and 0.7785 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 central bank is 0.75 per cent.

Treasury bills are short-term highly secured financial instruments issued by the Ministry of Finance. Treasury bills provide licensed commercial banks the opportunity to invest their surplus funds.

The Central Bank of Oman acts as the issue manager and provides the added advantage of ready liquidity through discounting and repurchase facilities (repo).

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.