Riyadh – Mubasher: The Saudi Ministry of Finance (MoF) on Monday said that it has authorised several domestic and international banks to manage the sale of the government’s US dollar-denominated sale.

Reports forecast that the new issue of dollar-denominated bonds will reduce pressure on Saudi Arabia’s domestic liquidity and will positively impact on the Saudi banking sector.

This is the kingdom’s second bond issuance in 2017. The first issue was launched in April, with the Kingdom successfully raising $9 billion from five- and 10-year Islamic bonds.

Bloomberg reported on Monday that the kingdom has selected five banks to manage the issuance.

These banks are: Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co, HSBC Holdings Plc, GIB Capital, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. as joint lead managers and bookrunners, Bloomberg reported on the same day, citing unnamed informed sources as saying.

“A sale of 144a/ RegS bonds with maturities of more than five, 10, and 30 years will follow subject to market conditions”, the sources told the news agency.

Saudi Arabia has turned to global bond issues in recently following the sharp drop in oil prices and its growing budget deficit, which is projected to reach SAR 198 billion ($53 billion) in 2017.

Locally, the kingdom launched SAR-denominated bonds worth SAR 37 billion over the past three months.