Colombo (Reuters) – Reuters reports that orders for Sri Lanka’s  U.S. dollar-denominated bonds, which went on sale today, have topped $3bn.

According to the Reuters report Standard & Poor’s and Fitch have assigned “B” ratings to the bonds, however, it is not immediately clear how much Sri Lanka plans to raise through the sale of these bonds.

The sale of 5-year and 10-year bonds comes days after the government presented its budget for 2019. According to a term sheet that Reuters had seen the money raised from the bonds is expected to be used for expenditure sanctioned by the Government for 2019.