The Hong Kong government has completed a green bond issuance, raising $5.75bn in a triple-currency offering.
According to ESG Today, the bonds are denominated in US dollars, Euros and Renminbi. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority said the offering marks the largest ESG bond issuance in Asia to date.
The deal saw significant demand, with the offering more than 6x oversubscribed, attracting more than $36bn in orders. With particularly strong demand for the RMB denominated bonds, the RMB tranches were doubled in size to RMB10 billion.
Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan said, “We see continued strong demand from global institutional investors for the HKSAR Government’s green bonds despite the recent market volatility. Since our issuance in 2021, we have once again launched a triple-currency issuance this year to demonstrate our commitment to promoting the development of green and sustainable finance in Hong Kong and providing the market with useful benchmarks.
“In fact, we are the first government issuer in Asia to issue green bonds in three currencies concurrently.”
Last year, the Singapore government published the Singapore Green Bond Framework, a framework for governance of sovereign green bond issuances.
According to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the framework details the Singapore government’s intended use of green bond proceeds, governance structure to evaluate and select eligible projects, operational approach to manage green bond proceeds and commitment to post-issuance allocation and impact reporting.
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