The Public Debt Office is the cornerstone of debt strategies for the Ministry of Finance in Chile. It supports liquidity and ensures stability in the local financial market through issuance and placement of treasury bonds. In this context, the Public Debt Office establishes referential interest rates in order to facilitate access to capital markets for Chilean businesses.
To accomplish its objective, the bureau, as part of the International Finance Unit, acts in coordination with the Treasury of the Republic, the Budget Office, and with the Central Bank in its role as fiscal agent in the placement and administration of bonds. It also monitors the investment of temporary surpluses resulting from the administration of the budget, and it proposes capital market reforms to promote the integration of domestic and international financial markets.
The Treasury issues in the local bond market in Chilean pesos and inflation-linked foment units (UF) contribute to the construction of the reference rate nominal and real curves. In 2008, the BTP-10 bonds were issued, which are the 10-year nominal bonds; for UF bonds, Chile issued the BTU-20 and BTU-30, which are 20- and 30-year bonds, respectively. During 2009, new bonds for the real curve were issued, BTU-5 and BTU-10, and for the nominal side, the BTP-5 was issued. As for the Central Bank, similar to the Treasury, they issue the BCP and BCU instruments, fixed-rate nominal bonds and inflation-linked foment unit bonds, respectively, with the objective of executing the monetary policy. Maturities for BCP bonds are 5 and 10 years (no issuance of 2-year reference after September 2012), while BCU have maturities of 5, 10, 20, and 30 years. The coupons of both are paid biannually.
In partnership with Bolsa de Comercio de Santiago (BCS, the local stock exchange), S&P Dow Jones Indices launched a series of sovereign bond indices and sovereign inflation-linked bond indices as a reference to the local market using the bonds described before. This series is categorized by maturity (see Exhibit 1).
As seen, buckets help asset managers benchmark their portfolios in case they need specific maturities. Also, the complete curve indices are calculated in USD for international investors. Exhibit 2 shows inflation, the reference rate from the Central Bank, and the local currency (Chilean peso) over the past 10 years—components that influence in the movements of the indices.
Finally, Exhibit 3 shows the annual returns of some these indices.[1]
[1] For more information on these indices, see here:
http://spindices.com/indices/fixed-income/sp-clx-chile-sovereign-bond-index
http://spindices.com/indices/fixed-income/sp-clx-chile-sovereign-bond-1-5-year-index
http://spindices.com/indices/fixed-income/sp-clx-chile-sovereign-bond-5-10-year-index
http://spindices.com/indices/fixed-income/sp-clx-chile-sovereign-bond-10-year-index
http://spindices.com/indices/fixed-income/sp-clx-chile-sovereign-bond-index-usd
https://spindices.com/indices/fixed-income/sp-chile-sovereign-inflation-linked-bond-index
http://spindices.com/indices/fixed-income/sp-clx-chile-sovereign-inflation-linked-bond-10-year-index
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