Fin. Min. to Reuters: IMF repayment in March

Greece will repay the final tranches of bailout loans owed to the International Monetary Fund by the end of March, two years ahead of schedule, Finance Minister Christos Staikouras told Reuters on Monday.

The country, which received more than 260 billion euros in bailout loans from the European Union and the IMF during its decade-long financial crisis, has relied solely on bond markets for its financing needs since exiting its third bailout in 2018.

“Greece has officially submitted a request for the full repayment of the outstanding balance of its IMF loans. The relevant procedure has been launched and is expected to be completed at the end of March,” Staikouras said in an interview.

Staikouras said that despite increasing spending to deal with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Greece will return to a primary surplus from 2023 onwards, as promised to its lenders, thanks to stronger growth and higher budget revenues.

The European Central Bank’s hawkish turn has sent Greek bond yields to their highest levels since April 2020, with 10-year bonds now yielding around 2.5% compared with 0.9% in September 2021.

“Greece implements a prudent and responsible fiscal policy and an insightful debt issuing strategy, in order to limit the consequences of the fact that, despite the consecutive credit rating upgrades during the last two years, the country has not yet achieved investment grade status,” he said.

“Regarding 2023 onwards, we will shift towards the achievement of realistic primary surpluses,” he added without providing further details.