Japan Bank for International Cooperation, the state-run lender that backed a USD1.1 billion Samurai bond issue by the Philippines last month, has approached Vietnam and Mongolia to discuss similar sales. “The process will take time because we need to do due diligence on its credit profile,” Hiroki Sekine, a senior JBIC official, has said.

Mongolia plans to sell as much as USD1.2 billion of bonds overseas this year in the nation’s first “benchmark” offering of dollar-denominated debt. Finance Minister S. Bayartsogt has said the Government favors dollars for the sale, but “Japanese banks are giving us very attractive proposals”.  According to Sekine, discussions with Mongolia are “still in a preliminary stage”.