Romania's Finance Ministry sells three-month certificates for lei 1.48bn at average yield of 11.49%

MFP collected 74 percent of the initially announced amount of 2 billion lei. Banks' offers totaled 2.91 billion lei.

At the previous bid on March 9, MFP sold treasury certificates with discount maturing in three months and collected 2.77 billion lei, 11 percent more than it had initially announced, for which it pays an average annual yield of 11.48 percent.

MFP plans to obtain as much as 7 billion lei in April for financing and refinancing the public debt, after collecting some 20.2 billion lei in the first three months of the year. 

At the first bid in April, MFP sold five-year bonds for 70 million lei at an average annual yield of 11.50 percent.

The government’s need for money stems from the widening of the budget deficit in the past months of 2008, to 5.21 percent of the gross domestic product by European standards.