Nigeria considers selling Chinese Panda bonds

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.