The Asian Development Bank (ADB) returned to the Philippine bond market with the pricing of its second Philippine peso denominated bond issue on Tuesday, said ADBin a news release.

This second issue follows ADB's successful opening of the Philippine bond market to foreign issuers in October 2005 when ADBissued the first peso-denominated bonds by a foreign issuer in thecountry.

"This bond issue is another milestone in ADB's commitment to develop regional bond markets," said ADB Treasurer Mikio Kashiwagi.

"It accentuates ADB's confidence in the Philippine capital markets."

Since early 2004, ADB has completed market-opening transactions in the region's local currency bond markets, including India, Malaysia, China and Thailand. The proceeds of this issue will be part of ADB's ordinary capital resources and will be used in its non-concessional operations.

With a principal amount of 5 billion pesos (106 million U.S. dollars) and a bullet maturity of five years and one day, the ADB peso bonds carry a fixed rate of 5.23 percent per annum and are priced at 85 percent of the five-year Philippine Government Security.

The joint lead arrangers and book runners for the issue were First Metro Investment and Standard Chartered Bank Philippines.

The Philippine peso has been gaining consistently in its exchange rate with the U.S. dollar over the past several months. The local currency has attained 1 U.S. dollar for less than 47 pesos a number of times this month.

Source:Xinhua