MUSCAT, Jan 19: Oman plans to issue government development bonds worth $340.3 million in 2002, a central bank official said on Saturday.

We will, over the year, issue bonds worth 131 million rials in three different issues, the first one would probably be floated in March, the official told Reuters.

The central bank regularly issues bonds to encourage Omanis to save and to raise funds to finance the government’s short- and medium-term requirement.

Last year, the central bank issued 40m rials worth of bonds and 45m rials in 2000. Both issues were oversubscribed. In 1999, it raised the equivalent of $341.5m from bonds.

There’s too much liquidity available in the market, mainly because deposit rates offered by commercial banks have fallen dramatically after the central bank decided to restrict lending, a financial analyst said.—Reuters