Greece is due to make a €459m (332m) loan repayment to the International Monetary Fund on Thursday, with anxiety mounting about the heavily indebted country’s ability to service its debts.
According to a report this morning, the IMF lodged a demand for payment at the Bank of Greece on Wednesday, as the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, arrived in Moscow on a two-day charm offensive.
It would be “impossible for Greece not to service its debts this month,” an unnamed source told the AFP news service in Athens.
The IMF chief, Christine Lagarde, said on Sunday that the Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, had pledged to make the payment on time at a meeting in Washington. His comments came after Greece’s interior minister, Dimitris Mardas, suggested last week Athens would prioritise wages and pensions over the IMF payment.
Even though Greece managed to raise €1.1bn from the sale of six-month bonds on Wednesday, it remains in a precarious position – shut out of international debt markets and dependent on short-term bonds for borrowing.
Independent City analyst Louise Cooper said: “This [bond sale] indicates that right at the moment, Greece is not expected to default. Although who bought that debt remains unknown (Greek banks are reportedly under pressure from ECB not to buy any more Greek government debt), we do know it has some cash to repay the IMF and so does the troika know that.”
via The Guardian
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