Saudi Arabia’s finance ministry issued 7 billion riyals ($1.9 billion) of Islamic bonds in its third monthly issue of domestic sukuk, the ministry said Monday.
Reuters reports the issue comprised 2.4 billion riyals ($640 million) of five-year sukuk, 3.9 billion riyals ($1.04 billion) of seven-year and 0.7 billion riyals ($190 million) of 10-year sukuk.
Bids for the entire issue totaled 24 billion riyals ($6.4 billion), the ministry said.
According to Bloomberg, Saudi Arabia has raised 37 billion riyals ($9.87 billion) in the past three months from domestic debt sales after tapping the international Islamic bond markets for $9 billion.
Bloomberg added the fund-raising could help the government narrow an expected budget deficit of 198 billion riyals ($52.8 billion) this year, or 7.7 percent of economic output.
