The privately-owned ABI Bank Ltd - formerly Antigua Barbuda Investment Bank Ltd - will manage the issue, which will take the form of 91-day Treasury Bills, and will be offered to the public through ECSE broker-dealers.

St Vincent and the Grenadines' 91-day, EC$16 million Treasury Bill issue, auctioned on the Regional Government Securities Market using ECSE's primary market platform on January 31st was oversubscribed by $4.7m. A competitive uniform price auction methodology was used and the resulting interest rate was 5.00%.

The previous week, the Government of St Lucia issued EC$25m fully-subscribed 10-year bonds on ECSE's primary market platform , with a coupon fixed at 6.5%.

ECSE says it enjoyed a year of success in 2005, its fourth year of operation, as the market outperformed all other regional markets in terms of returns to investors. According to ECSE, which is based in St Kitts & Nevis, the total overall return to investors was 15.5% last year, surpassing the returns available on any other regional market or on any other traded or non-traded publicly available financial asset class.

The ECSE also successfully implemented its strategy to expand into the wider CARICOM area, undertook an organisational restructuring, and embarked on a new market awareness programme.

From January 1 to December 31, 2005, the ECSE EC-Share Index appreciated by 9.53%, which, the bourse said, "was not achievable in any other asset class or financial market".

Growth recorded by the index was almost double that of the closest competitor, the Barbados Stock Exchange, whose BSE Local Index recorded an increase of 5.19% over the year, while the performance of the other markets "paled in comparison", with most showing declines in values, the Exchange noted.

"This spectacular performance reflects a significant increase in shareholder value, and coupled with an average dividend yield of approximately 6.0% for the year, amounts to a total overall return of 15.5% to investors," the ESCE stated.

Last year saw the ECSE implement its strategy to expand its operations into the wider CARICOM area by listing non-Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU), CARICOM companies and admitting non-ECCU broker-dealers into its intermediary network.

The ECSE says that its move into the wider Caribbean region is part of its strategy to increase the number of market listings, boost market activity and to leverage the significant capacity of the ECSE and its subsidiaries, and complements the move towards a single regional market and economy.

The first quarter of 2005 also saw the ECSE undergo a restructuring process in which three new divisions were created, namely: the Registry, Issuer and Investor Services; the Trading, Information and Intermediary Services; and the Finance and Administration Divisions.