South Korea is poised to issue China’s first sovereign “panda” bond next week, in a move that marks the latest step in Beijing’s efforts to internationalise the renminbi and deepen its onshore debt markets.
Korean officials will begin investor meetings in Shanghai and Beijing today with the aim of pricing Rmb3bn ($468m) of bonds, probably three-year notes, early next week, according to bankers.
While China’s bond markets, with more than $6tn of debt outstanding, are the third largest after the US and Japan, international borrowers and investors have until recently been mostly limited to offshore renminbi-denominated debt or dim sum bonds.