The Federal Government says it will Sell Eurobonds in Second Week of October.

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed said Nigeria plans to raise about $3 billion selling Eurobonds in the second week of October.

Ahmed said in a Bloomberg TV interview that the governmenatt has approval to raise $6.1 billion from overseas, “so we are looking at doing half of that in the Eurobond market and the other half from bilateral and multilateral sources.

“Depending on how the market goes, maybe we can do a little bit more,”.

The government is now working to reduce its debt-service burden by increasing revenue, restructuring its debt portfolio through the conversion of expensive short-term notes into longer tenors and also reducing its overall borrowing, Ahmed said. “Our target is to triple revenues from about 8% of GDP to 15%, and also grow the economy by 7%,” she said.

She also said proceeds from the first international sale since 2018 — will help the Nigerian economy to finance projects planned in the 2021 budget and shore up its foreign-exchange reserves, which has come under pressure from lower oil prices and production. The government expects a 2021 budget deficit of 5.60 trillion naira to be financed largely from foreign and local borrowings. Expenditure plans have been prepared for a worst case scenario of oil prices falling to as low as $40 a barrel next year, Ahmed said.

It would be recalled that Nigeria’s economy rebounded strongly in June, expanding 5.01%, the fastest pace in seven years, from a contraction of 6.1% the previous year as the easing of coronavirus restrictions allowed economic activity to pick up in the West African nation.