T

he government will begin offering retail Islamic debt papers (sukuk) to individual investors in March after previous issuances drew strong interest despite the shaky global financial market.

The Finance Ministry’s debt management office (DMO) on Monday began accepting applications from banks and brokerages to be sales agents for the government’s fourth issue of sharia-compliant bonds.

Sales agents will be appointed on Jan. 4 after a series of “ beauty contests”.

“The offering will be in March,” DMO chief Rahmat Waluyanto told The Jakarta Post in a text message on Tuesday, without elaborating.

Government debt papers are attractive for individual investors because their return rates are higher than bank deposits and are viewed as safe because of government guarantees.

 In its last retail sukuk issuance in February, the government raised Rp 7.34 trillion (US$800.06 million) with an annual coupon rate of 8.15 percent to be paid monthly, compared with a 6.75 percent bank deposit rate guaranteed by the Indonesia Deposit Insurance Corporation (LPS).

The government’s retail bond offerings have evinced strong demand from individual domestic investors, with the last sukuk issuance exceeding its Rp 6 trillion target.

The latest regular retail bond offering saw Rp 20.35 trillion in bids, although the government ended up selling Rp 11 trillion in debt papers.

The government plans to issue debt papers in the form of regular and sukuk institutional and retail bonds in rupiah and US dollar denominations to finance development projects and to plug an estimated state budget deficit equal to 1.5 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP).

The global financial market has been hit by high-level volatility in the stock, bond and currency markets on international funds’ sell-offs over fears of a global economic slowdown on the eurozone debt crisis and a stalling United States economic recovery.

Rahmat dismissed concerns on the retail sukuk issuance due to the shaky market. “The retail market is relatively resilient to crisis because the investors are individuals.”