Indonesia sells retail bonds

JAKARTA: Indonesia raised 3.92 trillion rupiah ($288.77 million) from retail bond sales, the finance ministry said in a statement on Monday, as the country tries to lure more citizens to invest in government debt.

The notes, dubbed saving bonds by the government because they must be held until maturity and cannot be sold in secondary market, have a floating interest rate with a minimum coupon of 7.50 percent and are set to mature in 2018.More than 11,900 Indonesians bought the notes.

Southeast Asia´s largest economy is aiming to sell more bonds to local individual investors this year as it tries to lower its dependence on foreign funds and deepen the local financial market.  The government sold 31.5 trillion rupiah of Islamic retail bonds in March.