Greece

A final round of diplomacy meant to smooth Greece’s exit from eight years of bailouts kicked off Friday, as eurozone finance ministers pushed to ensure Athens doesn’t backslide on promised reforms, The Wall Street Journal reported. The ministers, meeting in neighboring Bulgaria, called for Greece to speed up on the remaining changes that need to be completed before the bailout regime ends in August. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is seeking to free Greece from the strict austerity it has endured since a crisis that left it perilously close to crashing out of the eurozone.

The European Commission confirmed on Monday that Greece beat its bailout targets again last year, strengthening the government’s case against demands to bring forward additional tax measures originally scheduled to kick in starting 2020, Bloomberg News reported. Europe’s most indebted state achieved a budget surplus before interest and other one-time payments equal to 4.2 percent of its gross domestic product in 2017, more than twice the target set by its bailout auditors for a 1.75 percent of GDP surplus, the European Union’s executive arm said.

Yanis Varoufakis, Greece's former finance minister who transfixed Europe with his unconventional style at the climax of the debt crisis, launched a new party on Monday promising to free his country from debt bondage, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. The academic economist - who once described the austerity imposed by Greece's creditors as "fiscal waterboarding" - said his new MeRA25 party would revive the economy through debt restructuring and other measures.

Greece’s planned August exit from its third European Stability Mechanism bailout has triggered investor optimism. Its July 2017 bond issuance, the first in three years, was oversubscribed, as were subsequent issuances in February of this year. And yet financial investors should curb their optimism, a Bloomberg View reported. Greece’s return to the markets, and its economic recovery, are likely to be a bumpy and slow -- especially if it continues to delay key reforms. Greece’s growth appears to have stabilized at a low rate; some take that as a sign of normalization.

Greece won't backtrack on its privatisation plan after its bailout ends and expects state companies to submit plans by April to make themselves more competitive, the head of its state assets fund said. Greece, whose bailout ends in August, has agreed with lenders to raise another 3 billion euros (2.63 billion pounds) by 2019 from state asset sales and has promised to launch stake sales in Athens International Airport (AIA), gas company DEPA and oil refiner Hellenic Petroleum by next month, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Investors who bought Greece’s latest bond last week are already nursing paper losses, the Financial Times reported. The seven-year bond priced at a yield of 3.5 per cent on Thursday, but the €3bn paper is now trading at 4.19 per cent. Yields rise when prices fall. The timing of the deal was hit by market turbulence last week, with Greece naming bookrunners on the Monday but, after markets shifted on Tuesday, it waited until Thursday to price. The yield on Greece’s 10-year debt has also risen, up 80 basis points in the past week to 4.47 per cent.

Greece’s jobless rate was steady at 20.9 percent in November, unchanged from an upwardly revised figure in October, the country’s statistics service ELSTAT said on Thursday. Greece’s jobless rate was steady at 20.9 percent in November, unchanged from an upwardly revised figure in October, the country’s statistics service ELSTAT said on Thursday. Among younger persons aged 15 to 24, the jobless rate eased to 43.7 percent from 46.1 percent in the same month in 2016, Reuters reported.

Greece will sell 3 billion euros ($3.7 billion) of seven-year bonds in another step toward exiting a bailout program in August that has kept the nation afloat, Bloomberg News reported. The offer for the 2025 notes will price to yield 3.5 percent, inside an initial target of about 3.75 percent, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because they’re not authorized to speak about it. Investor orders for the sale topped 6 billion euros, the people said. Barclays Plc, BNP Paribas SA, Citigroup Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co.

A deal to sell National Bank of Greece's insurance unit to U.S. and Dutch investors looked fragile after a legal row erupted between the two buyers on Wednesday, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. U.S. investor Calamos Family Partners (CFP) said in an emailed statement it had filed a lawsuit in the U.S. against Dutch EXIN Financial Services Holdings for defaulting on loans.

EU creditors are to start sensitive talks on how to structure possible debt relief for Greece as Athens eyes an exit from eight years of international bailouts this summer, the Financial Times reported. Eurozone finance ministers praised the Greek government’s latest reform attempts in a meeting in Brussels on Monday and are expected to sign off the country’s third bailout review formally once outstanding reform measures are completed in the coming weeks.