Brussels, 07/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 6 February, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) remained cautious on whether Greece will make a speedy return to the money markets at a time when there are rumours in the media about a potential third bailout for the country, this time for between €10 billion and €20 billion.
“We're already seeing renewed investor interest in some segments of the Greek economy, notably the financial system, with determined policy implementation. Such confidence will undoubtedly spread, including to the market for Greek government debt. But it's difficult to say exactly when this might happen; uncertainty is still large. And, again, the key to this happening remains continued strong program implementation”, said IMF spokesperson Gerry Rice.
Rice continued: “In terms of financing commitments required by the IMF, that's something that will be discussed in the context of this upcoming next review. And I'm going to leave the details of that to the review”. He refused to comment on statements made last week by IMF Director for Europe Reza Moghadam during a closed hearing at the European Parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee (see EUROPE 11010), where Moghadam said that the IMF had called for the Greek debt to be restructured at the outset, in 2010 (cf Twitter @AgencEurope). Rice said the troika mission (European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF) would “return soon. Once we have clarified a number of technical issues”.
A spokesman for the Greek government, Simos Kedikoglou, said on Radio Vima FM on Thursday that Greece was ready for the next Eurogroup meeting and was making good progress in the agreed measures, having even overshot some targets. Addressing more than a hundred German entrepreneurs in Frankfurt, Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras said that the final figures for 2013 would show Greece's economy contracted below the 4% target and that the primary surplus (not including debt servicing), for the first time after a number of decades, would amount to 1% of gross domestic product. (EL/transl.fl)