Exclusive: Latvian DMO Head: We Aim to Become a Regular Issuer in USD Market

10 June 2025

By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – Latvia may become a regular issuer in the USD bond market following its return after a 12-year hiatus, according to Kaspars Āboliņš, head of the Latvian State Treasury.

In an interview with Econostream on June 9 (transcript here), Āboliņš said that returning to the USD bond market in 2024 after 12 years of absence was ‘a strategic decision’.

‘USD bonds provided diversification of our investor base and will serve as good point of reference for further issuances’, he said. ‘In the long term, we see ourselves as a regular issuer in the USD market, but bond issuance will be subject to market conditions.’

Asked if the Latvian State Treasury would be open to issuing in any other foreign currencies apart from USD, he replied that they would for the sake of diversification if pricing offered an opportunity.

Regarding a potential issuance of a new sustainable bond, which he had said last year was a possibility in the medium term, Āboliņš said that was still the plan.

‘[S]uch issuance is much more complex and involves greater effort than conventional bonds, therefore issuance of new benchmark ESG-labelled bond is subject to availability of eligible expenditure and the situation in financial markets’, he said.

The Latvian State Treasury was following other EU sovereign issuers’ steps in using retail bonds for defence-related funding, according to Āboliņš, who did not exclude such a possibility for Latvia.

‘[B]ut it would be beneficial for investors to have common guidelines on how such investments are classified and how risks of such portfolios are managed’, he added.

Latvia’s general government debt was much lower than the euro area average and would remain below the 60% debt-to-GDP level, despite a moderate increase expected in general government debt in the medium-term due to defence-related expenditures, he said.