Egypt intends to issue $500M in Samurai bonds next November

CAIRO – 22 October 2023: Minister of Finance, Mohamed Maait, said that Egypt will offer “Samurai” bonds in Japanese yen before the end of next November, at a value of $500 million.

 

Samurai bonds are bonds denominated in Japanese yen, issued by foreign borrowers on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. In March 2022, for the first time in its history, Egypt issued international “Samurai” bonds worth $500 million, which were then equivalent to about 60 billion yen.

 

Maait’s talk with “Al-Sharq with Bloomberg” comes after Egypt issued “Panda” bonds earlier in October, in the Chinese market in the yuan currency, also worth $500 million.

 

The yields on the “Panda” bonds issued by Egypt reached 3.5 percent annually for a period of three years, which Maait described at the time as a “very low return in a financial market that is new to us, and in unfavorable conditions that include many challenges.”

 

However, the yield on Egyptian bonds is much higher than the average yield on similar Japanese government bonds of 0.116 percent, while the yield on three-year Chinese government bonds reaches 2.389 percent, according to Al-Sharq with Bloomberg.

 

Egypt hit the international bond markets last February, when it sold sovereign bonds, the first in its history, worth $1.5 billion for a period of three years. The international offering attracted orders worth $6.1 billion, exceeding the coverage ratio four times.

 

The Minister of Finance said in September that Egypt was looking to obtain new external financing ranging between $1.5 and $2 billion, including $1 billion through the offering of “Samurai” and “Panda” bonds before the end of the year.