Mexico weighing new euro bond issue after three year gap: debt chief

PANAMA CITY | Sat Mar 16, 2013 12:48pm EDT

PANAMA CITY (Reuters) - Mexico is considering issuing a new euro bond after a recent improvement in European market conditions, debt chief Alejandro Diaz de Leon said on Saturday.

Mexican officials will visit Europe next week to bring investors up to date on the new government's plans for structural reforms and test the appetite for a new issue, he said on the sidelines of an Inter-American Development Bank meeting in Panama.

"It depends a bit on the outcome of the meetings; what's clear is that a market which did not look very attractive to us 12 months ago, 18 months ago, now the levels are different and it is becoming attractive again," he told Reuters.

The euro swap curve had come down while the yields on U.S. bonds were increasing.

"At the end of the day you can't pre-empt what will happen but for us it's important to talk to investors," he said.

Mexico last issued debt in euros in mid-2010, when it placed 850 million euros in seven-year bonds, according to Thomson Reuters service IFR, which said Diaz de Leon would visit the Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands between March 18 and March 20.

Diaz de Leon said although officials were continually looking at the possibility of issuing debt in dollars and yen as well, they did not have other overseas trips planned in the short term.

Latin America's second biggest economy issued about $5 billion of new foreign currency debt in 2012, including a landmark unsecured yen bond worth about $1 billion. Strong demand helped Mexico clinch record low interest rates.

Mexico's Congress has approved foreign currency debt issues of up to $7 billion for 2013.

(Reporting by Krista Hughes and Luis Rojas; Editing by Vicki Allen)

Source: http://www.findata.co.nz/News/19675971/Mexico_weighing_new_euro_bond_issue_after_three_year_gap_debt_chief.htm

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