The Greek statistical office, ELSTAT, announced on Friday 21 April that the country’s primary surplus (not including debt-servicing) stood at 3.9% in 2016.
Despite differences in the way some expenditure and tax income is dealt with in statistics on the Greek bailouts, the figure underscores the Greek authorities’ cleaning up of the country’s public finances. The third Greek bailout plan requires the country to have a primary budget surplus of 0.5% of GDP in 2016 and 3.5% in 2018, the year the bailout plan ends.
On the same day, on the fringes of the spring summits of the IMF and the World Bank, IMF director general Christine Lagarde met the Greek finance minister, Euclide Tsakalatos. ‘We had constructive discussions in preparation for the return of the mission to discuss the two arms of the Greece program: policies and debt relief.’ The mission will look at reforms needed so that Greece can meet its post-2018 budget commitments.
The IMF is making its financial involvement in the Greek bailout conditional upon the adoption of measures to enable the country to keep credible budget commitments in the medium-term and ensure the viability of Greece’s public debt.
On Friday, ELSTAT said that the Greek debt continued to grow, rising from 177.4% of GDP in 2015 to 179% of GDP in 2016 despite a return to (low) growth of 0.7% of GDP. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)