(Bloomberg) -- Italy is selling its second sovereign bond of the year, about three weeks after pulling in a record orderbook.

The September 2049 note has an initial price target of 20 basis points to 22 basis points above benchmark rates, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because they’re not authorized to speak about it. The deal is scheduled to price Wednesday.

Italy aims to raise about 250 billion euros ($285 billion) of debt this year, and the county has rushed back into the bond market as calm financial conditions and receding risks of an interest-rate increase boost demand for high-grade debt. Austria, Belgium and Finland all got their largest-ever syndicated orderbooks in recent weeks, while Italy had more than 35.5 billion euros of bids in a 10 billion-euro sale of March 2035 notes on Jan. 15.

The country’s rapid return “speaks volumes about the current attractive backdrop for issuers,” Rainer Guntermann, a Commerzbank AG rates strategist, said in a note. Italy seems set “to front-load as much funding as possible as uncertainties from politics or central banks may be looming later in the year,” he said.

An economic slowdown is among the risks facing Italy, as the country slipped into recession last year. Still, the nation’s bonds gained for a third month in January helped by the end of a budget row with the European Union and a regional slowdown denting expectations for a European Central Bank rate hike.

To contact the reporter on this story: Neil Denslow in London at ndenslow@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Hannah Benjamin at hbenjamin1@bloomberg.net

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