Thus, in the middle of August, the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasuries declined to around 2.5 percent, probably due to the decrease in the expected economic growth accompanied by lower inflation over the longer term, rather than expectations of a temporary economic slowdown (Chart 3).
This surplus was a remarkable achievement taking into account the substantial increase in the country’s oil import bill. The bigger bill was due to a rise in the price of oil from about $ 10 per barrel at the beginning of 1999 to prices in excess of $ 30 in the first half of 2000.