Three year drives MoF auction despite steeper curve

China's Ministry of Finance (MoF) brought its seventh auction of offshore renminbi bonds on Wednesday, selling Rmb16bn ($2.6bn) in what was the first of two sales scheduled for this year. More than half the Rmb41.8bn demand was targeted at the three year tranche, continuing the short-end dominance of previous auctions. Fears of global rate rises make that unsurprising, but it was the central bank tranche that gave the most striking example of how strongly those concerns are driving markets.