Colombia is planning to swap nearly $21.3 billion of local bonds to extend maturities and to finance its biggest budget deficit in five years, Bloomberg reports. The government will offer to exchange fixed-rate securities due between 2010 and 2015 and inflation-indexed debt maturing in 2010 and 2012.
The debt will be exchanged for inflation-linked peso bonds due in 2013, 2023 along with a new bond due in 2017. The government is expecting that the budget deficit will increase to 4.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2010, from 4.2 percent in 2009.
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