Singapore, 9 April 2002... The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) today released the latest results of the 2001 Survey of the Singapore Corporate Debt Market.

The latest survey showed that Singapore corporate debt market has seen yet another sterling year, with the total amount of corporate debt issuance in 2001 registering a record S$72 billion, a significant 43% increase from S$50.5 billion issued in 2000.   The total number of debt issues more than doubled in 2001, to a record number of 1,450 issues.  Significantly, total outstanding corporate debt volume also increased 63% to S$80.8 billion.

Non-S$ denominated bonds continued to dominate corporate debt issuance volumes in Singapore, with 649 non-S$ denominated issues registering a total of S$50.0 billion, compared to 801 S$-denominated issues registering a total of S$22.0 billion.  Significantly, the market also saw an unprecedented number of large-sized S$ bond issues of around S$1 billion, fuelled by the increased merger-&-acquisition activity in the Singapore banking and telecommunications sectors.  There has also been a number of longer tenured non-S$ bond issues of between 10 and 30 years' maturity.

Last year also saw an increase in the issuance of structured paper, in response to greater demand for higher-yielding products and increased risk hedging activities.  Structured notes such as asset-backed securitisation, bank-subordinated debt, equity-linked and credit-linked notes formed about 47% of the total S$ debt issued in 2001.

The full results of the 2001 Survey of the Singapore Corporate Debt Market are attached at Annex.

Annex : 2001 Survey of the Singapore Corporate Debt Market