Nigeria's finance minister says country considers selling Chinese Panda bonds

April 9, 2016 10:18 AM

Nigeria's Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun speaks at a news conference in Lagos, Nigeria, April 9, 2016.

Nigeria is considering selling Chinese Panda bonds to help finance the 2016 budget, its finance minister said on Saturday.

The OPEC member is also looking to sell Eurobonds, apart from loans from multilateral agencies, Kemi Adeosun told Reuters and the Financial Times in an interview in Lagos.

"Initially we were looking simply at the Eurobond market but then we began to explore opportunities in the Renminbi market, so there is a possibility of issuing a Panda bond," she said.

She said Nigeria was expecting to post budget deficits for the next two to three years. For 2016 the government expected a deficit of 2.2 trillion naira, she added.

President Muhammadu Buhari has yet not signed the 2016 record budget with a volume of $30 billion yet due to wrangling with parliament which passed it last month.

Nigeria might use money set aside for funding joint venture projects with foreign and local oil firms to make up any shortfall in the 2016 budget if government revenue projections are not met, Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun said on Saturday.

The West African nation has been trying to boost tax revenues and the non-oil income to fund a record $30 billion 2016 budget aimed at reviving Africa's biggest economy hit by the slump in oil prices.

"The Plan B is around the cash calls," Adeosun told Reuters and the Financial Times in an interview in Lagos when asked how the budget would be funded if revenue projections fell short.

Cash calls are the government's financial obligations to joint venture projects between state oil firm NNPC and international and local oil companies.

"If the revenue doesn't come in we have got 1 trillion (naira) in the budget for cash calls. We will not fund those cash calls from the budget," the minister said.

"We will force those cash calls out into the modified carrier arrangement and we will release that money back into the federation account. That's where the fiscal buffer sits," she said.

Modified Carry Agreements are loans provided by oil majors to NNPC for investing in oil exploration and production projects.

Nigeria's oil and gas output has been relatively stagnant as new projects have been held up by delays in government funding for its share of joint ventures with foreign and local firms.

NNPC has been to trying to cut back debt owed to the oil firms, reducing it to $3 billion by December, down from $3.5-$4 billion, NNPC head Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu said last month.

The 2016 budget, which anticipates a deficit of 2.2 trillion naira ($11 billion), would triple capital expenditure to invest in roads and power supply to diversify the economy away from oil, which accounts for 70 percent of national income.