A total of 3 billion yuan (441.2 million U.S. dollars) of bonds of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region government were successfully sold to underwriters through bidding, said the Chinese Ministry of Finance (MOF) Friday.

It is the first such sale of its kind in the country, marking the start of local government bond sales which were budgeted to hit 200 billion yuan this year.

A total of 16 book-entry treasury bond underwriters participated in the bidding, with the coupon fixed at 1.61 percent, 0.01 percentage points higher than national book-entry treasury bonds from the same period, said the ministry, which invited public bidding on behalf of the regional government.

The bonds sold Friday will be sold to investors between March 30 and April 1, and will become tradable as of April 3 on the interbank market and securities exchanges. Interest will be paid annually.

All such bonds would be issued by the MOF on behalf of the local government. It would take the form of book-entry national treasury bonds.

The ministry said most of the 200 billion yuan in local government bonds will be issued during the second and third quarters this year.

A batch of local bonds of Anhui province will be issued through public bidding on March 31.

(Xinhua News Agency March 28, 2009)