Jebulon
The review should be completed quickly, as the country needs to get out of the control of creditors as early as next year.
Athens hopes to complete the review by January in order to begin negotiations with creditors immediately after the end of the rescue and financial assistance program in the amount of 86 billion euros in August 2018, as well as to further alleviate the debt burden, for which Greece has been waiting for quite some time.
On Wednesday, experts from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) should arrive in the country. They will be preparing the ground for their chiefs of missions that are arriving next Monday. This will be the first of at least two planned visits, said officials close to the negotiation process.
The talks will be focused on Greece's efforts to reduce volume of bad loans, which is the main problem for the EU and the IMF, officials said. Reforming the public sector and opening up the energy market are also on the agenda.
To date, Athens has fulfilled about 15 of about 100 claims, which include some labor, pension and tax reforms, but risks still persist, especially as the deadline is approaching, officials warned.
"There are not many difficult questions in this review, unlike previous ones," an official close to the negotiations told Reuters. "But the delay (after January) entails the risk of more demands from the IMF on banks and relief of burdens debt ".
For the first nine months of the year, the central government of Greece reached a primary budget surplus of 4.5 billion euros, which is slightly lower than the target figure due to lower tax revenues.
The government aims at a surplus of the main state budget in the amount of 1.9% of GDP this year based on its medium-term plan for fiscal strategy. The salvation goal is a primary surplus of 1.75% of GDP.
source: reuters.com
Athens hopes to complete the review by January in order to begin negotiations with creditors immediately after the end of the rescue and financial assistance program in the amount of 86 billion euros in August 2018, as well as to further alleviate the debt burden, for which Greece has been waiting for quite some time.
On Wednesday, experts from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) should arrive in the country. They will be preparing the ground for their chiefs of missions that are arriving next Monday. This will be the first of at least two planned visits, said officials close to the negotiation process.
The talks will be focused on Greece's efforts to reduce volume of bad loans, which is the main problem for the EU and the IMF, officials said. Reforming the public sector and opening up the energy market are also on the agenda.
To date, Athens has fulfilled about 15 of about 100 claims, which include some labor, pension and tax reforms, but risks still persist, especially as the deadline is approaching, officials warned.
"There are not many difficult questions in this review, unlike previous ones," an official close to the negotiations told Reuters. "But the delay (after January) entails the risk of more demands from the IMF on banks and relief of burdens debt ".
For the first nine months of the year, the central government of Greece reached a primary budget surplus of 4.5 billion euros, which is slightly lower than the target figure due to lower tax revenues.
The government aims at a surplus of the main state budget in the amount of 1.9% of GDP this year based on its medium-term plan for fiscal strategy. The salvation goal is a primary surplus of 1.75% of GDP.
source: reuters.com
