Portugal Aims to Raise $17.7B in Bonds This Year Portugal's government debt agency says it plans to raise up to 13 billion euros ($17.7 billion) from bond sales this year as the country recovers from a financial crisis that forced it to ask for a bailout. Portugal needed a 78 billion-euro international rescue in 2011 when investors, spooked by the government's high debt burden and financial turmoil in the wider eurozone, demanded unaffordable interest rates to lend it money. That financial aid runs out in the middle of this year. The Portuguese economy emerged from recession last year, and the government last week sold five-year bonds in the first issuance of its kind since the bailout as investor appetite returned. The debt agency said Wednesday it estimates Portugal's net borrowing needs at around 11.8 billion euros in 2014.