Asia Pacific

Asian DCM bankers are crossing their fingers and hoping that US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gives the debt market a boost today (Friday) by unveiling plans to launch a third round of quantitative easing in the US. The market was on hold this week, and several bankers pointed to Bernanke’s pending speech as the reason why.

The British supermarket operator has appointed two banks to handle its first ever offshore renminbi bond in Hong Kong.

Air Liquide is poised to become the first French company to issue dim sum bonds, and has appointed four banks as its bookrunners.

Hong Kong inflation spiralled last month, but the peg to the dollar means local authorities do not have a full toolkit to fight rising prices. That will give local account holders even more reason to convert their deposits into other currencies — something that could help broaden the offshore renminbi market.

Vice premier Li Keqiang’s announcement of a series of measures to bolster Hong Kong as the only offshore renminbi centre lacked vital details.

Industrial Bank of Korea is considering returning to the Samurai bond market later this year to pre-fund bonds it has maturing in 2012. But the policy bank has hit its funding target for the year and is in the comfortable position of being able to watch the volatility in secondary bond markets without being forced to launch a new deal.

Pakistan’s Meezan Bank is pitching several companies on the idea of issuing short term Islamic bonds, following its market-opening issues for a pair of domestic corporations over the past month.

The Chinese government flooded the dim sum bond market with Rmb15bn ($2.34bn) of bonds across a range of maturities this week, offering investors some activity after several quiet weeks — and opening the doors to a flood of issuance expected over the next few months.

Li Keqiang, vice premier of the People’s Republic of China, gave debt bankers plenty of reason for excitement this week by announcing a number of long-awaited schemes that will help develop the offshore renminbi market. But analysts are wary of getting too excited by what are still quite vague pledges.