US Treasury Moving To Extend Average Maturity Of Debt Portfolio-Official

   By Meena Thiruvengadam 
   Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES 
 

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. Treasury is working to extend the average maturity of its overall marketable debt portfolio, a senior Treasury official said Thursday.

"Given, structural changes in the deficit, the average maturity of the debt is expected to stabilize at six to seven years," Karthik Ramanathan, Treasury's acting assistant secretary for financial markets, said at conference hosted by the CFA Institute.

Historically, the average maturity of Treasury's marketable debt portfolio has hovered around five years. Treasury is working to lengthen that number in order to "bear the brunt of longer term structural shifts in the deficit" and to boost its ability to meet unexpected borrowing needs, he said.

The Treasury in fiscal year 2009 held 291 auctions in 251 business days, issuing nearly $7 trillion in gross marketable securities to raise $1.7 trillion in financing for the government. The value of Treasury bills outstanding in the past year has averaged about $2 trillion, up from the five-year average of about $1.2 trillion.

Ramanathan on Thursday reiterated Treasury's plans to boost issuance of inflation-indexed securities to meet future financing needs. He said the department is considering extending the maturity of the longest dated TIPS to accommodate 30-year securities.

-By Meena Thiruvengadam, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-6629; meena.thiruvengadam@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 01, 2009 09:09 ET (13:09 GMT)

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