Public debt rose 1.5% in February, shows Treasury – 03/29/2023 – Market

The federal public debt rose 1.51% in February over January, to R$ 5.856 trillion, informed the National Treasury this Wednesday (29).

In the period, the internal federal public securities debt totaled R$5.617 trillion, while the external federal public debt reached R$239.1 billion.

According to the Treasury, of the total federal public debt at the end of February, 24% corresponded to fixed rate securities, 31% to securities linked to price indices, 41% to floating rate securities and 4% to exchange securities.

In February, the increase of 1.51%, equivalent to R$ 87.31 billion, was due, according to the Treasury, to the net issuance of federal public debt of R$ 32.93 billion and to the positive appropriation of interest of R$ $54.38 billion.

The agency also informed that the public debt liquidity reserve — a kind of “cushion” for the payment of commitments — rose 4.43% in nominal terms in February, to R$ 995.66 billion.

Despite this increase, there was a reduction in the liquidity ratio, understood as the number of months in which the “cushion” is sufficient to cover the debt that comes ahead. According to the Treasury, this index changed from 7.62 months in January to 6.87 months in February.

According to the general coordinator of Treasury Public Debt Operations, Luis Felipe Vital, the movement occurred because the debt maturity in March is high. A preliminary calculation already excluding the payment of March commitments shows that the index jumps to 9.07 months, he informed.

“Liquidity cushion numbers suffer large variations throughout the month. This does not change the Treasury’s strategy”, commented Vital during an interview to the press. “The Treasury is very confident and calm about the volume of cash. Our financing strategy provides for maintenance of cash at levels close to what we found at the beginning of this year.”

According to him, the Treasury also works to maintain a liquidity index above three months.