Russian MinFin to focus on market needs when fulfilling borrowing plan - Siluanov

MOSCOW. July 4 (Interfax) - The Russian Finance Ministry intends to fulfill its borrowing plan for the current year, basing decisions on specific instruments partly on market needs, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told reporters.

"We go by the market's needs. Our plans, our decisions depend on what the market asks of us - floating or fixed-yield instruments - so we will be guided by the market situation," he said, when asked whether the ministry was planning to step up offerings of floating-rate bonds at auctions to fulfill its ambitious plan for the third quarter.

"We plan to borrow everything that we have planned for this year," he said.

The MinFin has increased its quarterly plans for the placement of federal loan bonds or OFZ: after meeting just 50.6% of its Q2 target of 1 trillion rubles it intends to place up to 1.5 trillion rubles of bonds at face value in July-September. A total of 13 auction days are planned: four in each of August and September, and five in July.

VTB First Deputy CEO Dmitry Pyanov told Interfax on Thursday that the bank was still committed to the tactics announced last year - to purchase only securities with a variable coupon at Finance Ministry auctions for OFZ. The ministry, which in the past has repeatedly reproached state banks for their passivity at auctions, is not now showing any dissatisfaction with these tactics, it follows from what Pyanov said.

The 2024 borrowing target will be reduced from 2.625 trillion rubles to 2.479 trillion rubles due to changes in the revenue structure and other sources of financing for the budget deficit, with redemptions unchanged at 1.442 trillion rubles and gross borrowing down to 3.921 trillion rubles from 4.068 trillion rubles.

The MinFin sold 804.55 billion rubles in Q1 including additional placements after auctions, slightly more than a planned 800 billion rubles.