US Treasury, dealers to discuss market conditions

WASHINGTON: The US Treasury Department said it will meet with primary-market dealers in New York on Friday as part of regularly scheduled meetings ahead of next week's quarterly refunding announcement.

"These meetings typically give us an opportunity to hear the latest from those who buy US Treasuries, and we expect them to be particularly useful as we enter a period where Congress has not yet acted to raise the debt ceiling," a Treasury official said.

Treasury is due to announce next week its borrowing needs for the current quarter and its plans for selling debt to meet those needs. But the political debate over whether to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling has thrown into question how Treasury can sell more debt.

Treasury has said that, after next Tuesday, it will no longer be able to pay all the government's bills and will be at risk of default.

The Obama administration and lawmakers are expected to continue to try over the weekend to find some common ground that would permit the debt ceiling to be raised.

The meeting on Friday, at the New York Federal Reserve, takes place at noon (1600 GMT) and will include all 20 primary dealers. Normally Treasury meets half of the key Wall Street dealers in individual sessions ahead of each quarterly refunding but in this case it will meet the whole group in a single session.

Copyright Reuters, 2011