–Says Greece Will Renew Treasury Bills In July
LUXEMBOURG (MNI) – Greece’s austerity plans are on track and
structural reforms are advancing, the country’s finance minister George
Papaconstantinou said on Tuesday, confirming also that the country will
issue treasury bills again in July.
Earlier Tuesday the European Commission said there was no obstacle
to Greece issuing T-bills to repay E4.35 billion of short-term
government paper due for redemption next month.
Greece is implementing an emergency set of austerity measures to
try and bring down its budget deficit, which is currently more than four
times higher than the EU’s stipulated 3%-of-GDP limit.
“The budget is on track,” Papaconstantinou told reporters after a
meeting of European Union finance ministers in Luxembourg. “The
structural reforms are advancing.”
He said the Greek government has “said for sometime now…July is a
time when the treasury bills will be renewed.”
“We are on target…all officials are monitoring very closely what
we are doing,” the minister said.
Greece is due to pay E1.95 billion in two payments due July 16 and
a single payment of E2.4 billion due July 23. The funds raised on the
market in July could be used to cover those payments.
On Tuesday Greece’s 3-month treasury bill rate traded at around
3.089%, down from 10.2% just before Eurozone finance minister and the
International Monetary Fund announced a E750 billion emergency fund to
shore up the Eurozone.
The finance minister said additional budget cutting measures being
employed by Spain and Portugal had been “very well received” by the
ECOFIN Council.
“I think that there is a general sense around the table that
everybody needs to undergo fiscal consolidation,” he said. “We have a
market that [is] not at the moment being convinced, we know that the
speculative pressures are there,” he said.
–Luxembourg: 0032 487 (0) 32 803 665, echarlton@marketnews.com
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