On April 23, registered in the National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors, Sinochem issued its first Medium-term Notes (MTN) in 2008 in the inter-bank bond market, with a total value of RMB 1.9 billion and the credit rating as AAA. The MTN will mature in 5 years, and the capital financed will mainly go to the strategic investment projects with partially supplementing the groups’ operating capitals in oil, fertilizer and chemicals businesses.

The inter-bank bond market MTN is a new direct debt financing instrument since the introduction of the short-term financing bills. An MTN usually matures in three to five years. Its flexible registration and issuance system helps reduce the intermediary links and it serves as an effective supplement as a one-to-five-year term financing instruments. Globally, the MTN was developed in 1990s and quickly became a replacement of the mid-term loans. On the trial phase in China, MTN is expected to have huge prospects.