(Bloomberg) -- The Philippines will sell tokenized treasury bonds for the first time on Monday as it pushes to further develop its domestic debt market.

The Bureau of the Treasury said it will offer at least 10 billion pesos ($179 million) of one-year tokenized bonds. The agency canceled the regular bills auction earlier scheduled for the same day to pave the way for the new issuance. The government said it reserves the right to change the issue size. 

The trend to explore blockchain and tokenized securities to raise funds has started in Asia, with Hong Kong announcing in February its successful offering of HK$800 million of tokenized green bond. Such security uses the so-called distributed ledger technology or DLT, which has the potential to boost liquidity and transparency in debt markets.

“We will continue to study the technology and test how far we can take it,” Deputy Treasurer Erwin Sta. Ana said in a mobile-phone message, when asked if the Philippines will regularly issue tokenized bonds after the maiden sale.

The Bureau of the Treasury will issue the tokenized bond due Nov. 2024 to institutional buyers at minimum denominations of 10 million  pesos, with increments of 1 million pesos, according to its notice of offering. The final interest rate will be determined through bookbuilding and will be announced on Nov. 20.

Development Bank of the Philippines and Land Bank of the Philippines, both state-owned, are the issue managers.

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