The announced value of the bid was of 800 million lei and the maximum yield accepted was of 7 percent. Banks’ offers amounted to over 1.4 billion lei.

At the previous similar bid, on June 19, MFP collected 157.26 million lei through one-year securities, for which it pays an average yield of 6.99 percent a year.

MFP plans to issue securities of 13-15 billion lei in the third quarter.

The Finance Ministry planned to collect between 11 and 13 billion lei from the market in the second quarter, but sponged only 8.06 billion lei because of the high level of yields required by lenders. It got 12.71 billion lei in the first trimester, above the 10-12 billion lei level initially estimated.

Last year, the ministry drew almost 65 billion lei (over 15 billion euros) from the market, up five times versus 2008.

The budget deficit target for the end of 2010 is of 6.8 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP).