The Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day in­di­cat­ed that it is seek­ing to bor­row up to US$750 mil­lion ($5.09 bil­lion) on the the in­ter­na­tion­al cap­i­tal mar­ket for "the fi­nanc­ing of gen­er­al de­vel­op­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go or of re­pay­ing bor­row­ings ef­fect­ed for the gen­er­al de­vel­op­ment."

The Gov­ern­ment's in­ten­tion was out­lined in a le­gal no­tice, signed by Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo and dat­ed Ju­ly 2.

The no­tice said the Gov­ern­ment has ap­point­ed JP Mor­gan Se­cu­ri­ties LLC and Citibank to act as joint lead man­agers/arrangers to fa­cil­i­tate the is­suance of the notes.

The pay­ment of prin­ci­pal, in­ter­est and oth­er debt charges in re­spect of the notes will be ex­empt from all tax­es and ex­change con­trol, in ac­cor­dance with the Ex­ter­nal Loans (Tax and Ex­change Con­trol Ex­emp­tion) (No. 2) Or­der, 2026.

The no­tice did not dis­close the in­ter­est rate, the term of the bond or the pro­posed date of is­sue.

In Jan­u­ary this year, The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go suc­cess­ful­ly is­sued a US$1 bil­lion sov­er­eign bond on the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket. That bond was re­port­ed to be over­sub­scribed by 2.5 times. The 10-year un­se­cured bond, man­aged by J.P. Mor­gan and Bank of Amer­i­ca, closed with a 6.50 per cent coupon rate, and ma­tures on Jan­u­ary 28, 2036. The pro­ceeds of the bond is­sued in Jan­u­ary were pri­mar­i­ly used to re­fi­nance the coun­try's US$1 bil­lion, 4.50 per cent notes due in Au­gust 2026.