“The 10-year samurai bond was guaranteed by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), which is a Japanese public finance institution wholly owned by the Japanese government,” he said after presenting certificates of completion to the lead arrangers of the bond – Mizuho Bank, HSBC and Daiwa (in partnership with Affin Hwang) – here today.

He added that the bond issuance is a landmark transaction as it is the largest JBIC-guaranteed sovereign bond issuance in the Japanese yen bond market.

It is also the first JBIC guarantee undertaken by the Malaysian government, and marks Putrajaya’s return to the Japanese yen bond market after 30 years.

“The samurai bond was oversubscribed by 1.6 times or 324.7 billion yen (RM11.9 billion), a testimony of the confidence of Japanese investors in the Malaysian market,” Lim said.

Strong interest from Japanese investors also enabled the samurai bond to be priced competitively, with an overall cost to government at 0.63% – lower than the initial projection of 0.65%.

Lim attributed the successful issuance of bonds to the close ties between Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe.

The proceeds from the samurai bonds will be utilised for infrastructure development expenditure.