Japan may issue additional JGBs: MoF official

LONDON: Japan may issue additional government bonds to fund its supplementary budgets designed to help rebuild the area hit by the March 11 earthquake, a senior Japanese finance ministry official said on Monday.

Kohei Noda, acting director for overseas relations at the Japanese finance ministry's debt management policy division, said that Japan did not issue any additional bonds for the first supplementary budget given its focus on fiscal discipline.

"Given the magnitude of the damage it's highly likely, I think, that we will go to the second and third supplementary budgets. We may have to go back to the market for additional funding as there's no way we can fund just by reducing the budget expenditures," he told a conference in London.

Noda added that the JGB markets have been so far stable judging from the results of post-earthquake auctions.

Copyright Reuters, 2011