A number of governments state explicitly, in broad terms, their goals for debt management. For most, these could be summarised as:

"Raising finance from the non-government sector in order to cover the government’s borrowing needs, while minimising the long-run cost of debt service and taking account of risk (and, where necessary, co-ordinating with monetary policy)."

This Handbook explores the long-run objectives of deficit financing and then discusses the various elements involved in building an appropriate strategy for pursuing those objectives in domestic currency markets (irrespective of whether the securities are purchased by residents or non-residents). Certain subjects, such as debt issuance techniques, the use of specialist market intermediaries, development of secondary markets, and payments and settlements issues, are major topics in their own right, some of which will be covered in separate Handbooks.

This handbook is also available in Russian and Spanish.