China's government will issue 26 billion yuan ($3.8 billion) of book-entry treasury bonds from Thursday, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) said in a statement posted on its website Wednesday.

The bonds, with a term of three years, have a fixed annual interest rate of 2.23 percent, to be paid on every March 18 till 2013, it said.

The five-day issue will be the sixth issue of book-entry treasury bonds this year.

Book-entry bonds are the bonds recorded in the investors' securities accounts called book entries. They can be traded on the open market, and their market prices can deviate.