Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, ASEAN+3 governments have had to undertake sizable fiscal spending to save lives and livelihoods. The unprecedented fiscal support led to a marked widening in fiscal deficits, financed by increased issuances of domestic government debt securities. And with fiscal deficits likely to remain high in many economies as they struggle to establish a sustained recovery in the current tumultuous environment, the need for financing is expected to remain elevated in 2022 and beyond. AMRO’s Bond Auction Tracker (BAT) is a framework for identifying any build-up of stress in sovereign bond markets—it allows readers to analyze trends in the supply of and demand for bonds that could potentially serve as early warning indicators of any deterioration in market sentiment toward particular government issuances.
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