General Motors Corp, General Electric Co, and Ford Motor Co, the three biggest US corporate debtors, plan to reduce or leave unchanged their annual borrowing, to preserve credit ratings and on expectations cash on hand is sufficient for business expansion.

　　"We could be selling a lot of debt right now, but we're not," said Walter Borst, 42, treasurer of Detroit-based General Motors, the world's biggest automaker. "We're focused on not doing more than is necessary, on not taking every dollar out of the capital markets," added Borst.

　　Debt issuance by non-financial US companies is down by almost half from a year ago, to US$36.5 billion, according to Merrill Lynch & Co. Companies such as General Motors are showing restraint in borrowing, working to preserve investment-grade credit ratings by hoarding cash and waiting for signs the economy's growth is sustainable before increasing debt, according to analysts such as Thomas Kelly, managing director of industrial-credit analysis at Standard & Poor's.

　　General Motors hasn't sold debt in the institutional bond market since June, when it issued US$13.6 billion of notes to pay pension costs. Investor demand totaled US$35 billion to US$40 billion, said Borst.

　　"We issue to the extent we have debt maturing or when our business grows its assets," said Kathryn Cassidy, 50, the treasurer of Fairfield, Connecticut-based General Electric. "We don't look opportunistically at fixed rates. GE is not going to go out and borrow long-term money just because rates are low."

　　Corporate bond yields have averaged 5.82 percent this year, below the five-year average of 7.04 percent, according to a recent Moody's Investors Service index of AA rated companies. Five years ago, the average was 7.35 percent.

　　The 10-year US Treasury note yield, a base rate for corporate borrowing, surged 26.5 basis points to 4.15 percent on Friday after the government said the 308,000 jobs were created in March, above the 120,000 median estimate of economists surveyed.

　　(Bloomberg News)