MEXICO CITY, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Mexico's government has issued its first "Formosa bond" with an offering of 50-year notes in U.S. dollars on the Taiwanese market and raised $3 billion, the finance ministry said on Monday.

The issuance was more than three times oversubscribed, the finance ministry said, drawing interest from 210 international institutional investors.

"Mexico opened the international markets of 2021 with a successful transaction in Formosa, Taiwan," deputy finance minister Gabriel Yorio said on Twitter.

Listed in Luxembourg as well as Taipei, the issue has raised $3 billion with a 3.75% coupon, the finance ministry said, confirming an earlier report from Refinitiv IFR. "Formosa" refers to foreign currency bonds issued in Taiwan.

Yorio said the Taiwan deal attracted 10 new investors, mostly Taiwanese insurers with long-term investment profiles.

The transaction covered 35% of the foreign currency funding requirements for Mexico's 2021 budget, he added.

A prospectus filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said the bonds would be issued this month and mature in April 2071.

Interest payments would begin in April 2021, and occur in April and October each year, it added.

Mexico in November completed a debt refinancing operation worth $6.6 billion in international markets, including a heavily over-subscribed bond offer.

Last year, Latin America's second-largest economy was moving closer to losing its coveted investment grade credit rating amid concerns over the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on its economy.

The debt of national oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, has also been weighing heavily on the sovereign credit rating. However, in recent weeks two ratings agencies affirmed their assessments of the Mexican sovereign.

Mexican Finance Minister Arturo Herrera told Reuters last week that the country could return to normal levels of economic activity in the coming months, lifted by new public-private investment projects in infrastructure and energy. Source: [https://bit.ly/38YhUwG] (Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon and Stefanie Eschenbacher, Editing by Alistair Bell and Grant McCool)