KYIV, Sept 21 – Ukraine has on Thursday fully redeemed a domestic treasury bill due last week and the government would discuss the untimely payment this week, Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko said.
“Today the government has made a payment of Hr 73 million ($13.42 million). We have (redeemed) a 100 percent of papers,” Yushchenko told reporters.
The government failed to repay 450-day t-bill worth Hr 68.15 million due September 13 putting it into a technical default.
It was unclear why the government paid more than it was due on the bill. The finance ministry does not always publish data on debt auctions results.
Yushchenko said the untimely payment undermined stability on the domestic debt market. It was the first time since a 1998 economic crisis that the government failed to honor its debt.
Ukraine’s debt market has only recently started to recover after the 1998 crisis, and traders said the failure to repay the bill might again put the market to a virtual stop.
