Dollar bonds are becoming an increasingly hot way for Japan’s prefectures and cities to diversify their funding at attractive costs.
In the latest example, Kyushu's Saga Prefecture sold its first note in the U.S. currency on Tuesday, following last week’s issuance of such debt by neighboring Fukuoka Prefecture. The bond offerings came after a record $570 million of such securities from Japanese local governments were sold to local investors in the last three months of 2020.
The popularity is all the more striking considering that the first domestic sale of prefectural dollar notes came only in 2018 by Shizuoka Prefecture.