British Columbia to issue $150-mn masala bonds next year

NEW DELHI: British Columbia, the 15th-largest metropolitan region in Canada, will issue $150 million rupee-denominated bonds, also known as masala bonds, in the first quarter of the next calendar year.

"We (British Columbia) are AAA-rated jurisdiction. Our budgets are balanced... No foreign government has issued masala bonds. We will be the first foreign government to issue masala bonds worth $150 million," British Columbia's Minister of Finance Michael De Jong told reporters here.

"We will issue the bonds by the the first quarter of the next calender year."

Letting out future plans, British Columbia's Assistant Deputy Minister Jim Hopkins said the rupee-denominated bonds will be listed on the London Stock Exchange.

In 2014, RBI had allowed the International Finance Corporation and the Asian Development Bank to issue rupee-denominated debt outside India.

So far, only IFC, a unit of the World Bank, has issued masala bonds.