The government plans to finalise, later this month, a manual of procedures for managing domestic public debt, in line with international best practices. At the same time, the possibility of allowing families and individual investors access to Treasury Bond (OT) issues, currently restricted to commercial banks, is being analysed.
According to a Ministry of Finance report on the 2024 budget execution, the manual will provide practical guidelines for domestic debt management and should be approved in the first quarter of 2025.
Mozambique’s domestic public debt grew by 21.8 per cent in 2024, driven above all by the issue of short-term Treasury Bills, worth around 754 million dollars (46.2 billion meticals).
With this increase, the total stock of domestic debt reached 6.6 billion dollars (407.1 billion meticals) on 31 December, of which 44.7 percent corresponded to Treasury Bonds, securities with longer maturities.
The document indicates that the process of registering public securities in the system is underway and is expected to be finalised by the fourth quarter of 2025. In addition, an intercommunication system is being implemented between the Mozambique Stock Exchange (BVM), the Bank of Mozambique and other financial entities, with the aim of modernising and boosting the public securities market.
The government is also drawing up a proposal to repeal the current legislation on the legal regime for issuing Treasury Bonds, in order to allow other natural and legal entities to have direct access to the primary OT market. The initiative also aims to boost the secondary market, allowing families and private investors to invest their capital in these financial instruments.
Currently, access to Treasury Bond issues is exclusively through commercial banks. The government’s proposal is part of a strategy to diversify the investor base, promote greater inclusion in the financial market and guarantee the sustainability of the domestic public debt.
Source: Lusa
