IRELAND’S ABILITY to raise €1 billion in long-term debt represents a welcome, if qualified, vote of confidence in the economy by international lenders. When the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) sold Government debt on Tuesday, the offer was heavily oversubscribed. The Government has already sold €11 billion of bonds this year and it expects to sell a further €14 billion in the coming months to finance the budget deficit.
The NTMA, wisely, has sought to finance as much of the Government’s annual borrowing needs as quickly as it can. For global bond markets may come under greater pressure later this year when large sovereign borrowers raise huge sums to meet their budgetary needs. Signs of bond market uncertainty were readily apparent yesterday as the British government, for the first time in 14 years, failed to sell all the debt offered at its bond auction.
The NTMA’s success in selling €1 billion in debt comes at a price. Ireland’s cost of borrowing on the bonds issued remains very high, just below that of Greece, and almost double the benchmark rate set by Germany. This reflects investor concerns about Ireland’s soaring budget deficit, the largest in the euro zone, and whether budget balance can be restored by 2013, as the European Commission has sought and as the Government has promised to achieve. Not surprisingly, investors demand a risk premium – a higher rate of return – from risky borrowers whose capacity to repay their borrowings is questioned. Ireland is no exception.
The encouraging news, however, is that international investors have in recent weeks shown some signs of reassessing Ireland’s credit-worthiness. Investor sentiment has improved, greatly helped both by the Government’s announcement of an emergency budget next month and its previous determination – now apparently wavering – to keep its borrowing below 10 per cent of national output this year. In consequence, Ireland’s borrowing costs have declined somewhat, as reflected in a narrowing of the yield spread – or differential – between Irish and German bonds. The price of credit default swaps on Irish debt, often viewed as a crude measure of the risk of default, also has halved over the past month.
Yesterday’s decision by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to defer the national strike called for next Monday is a welcome development. A strike that led to serious disruption of transport, health and education services would have proved deeply divisive at home and sent the wrong message abroad at a critical time. This prospect has been averted for now. And the decision by the trade unions to re-engage in talks with the Government can only raise international investor confidence in Ireland’s willingness to address the crisis in the public finances.
Ultimately, however, it is what the Government decides in the emergency budget on April 7th and how it balances tax rises and expenditure cuts that matter. Success or failure there will be measured both by the reaction of the public and, critically, by the judgment of the bond market.