Greece

Eurozone finance ministers were set to hail Greece’s recent steps to improve its public finances on Monday — but also to hold off on giving Athens a full bill of health it seeks as it prepares to return to financial markets, the Financial Times reported. In Mário Centeno’s first meeting as president of the eurogroup, the finance ministers will confirm that Athens has adopted the vast majority of 113 economic reforms the country needs to take under this phase of its €86bn bailout.

A senior EU official says Greece is close to passing its next bailout review, putting the country within reach of ending its eight-year rescue program that saved it from bankruptcy but required hugely painful austerity cuts, the International New York Times reported on an Associated Press story. The official said that eurozone finance ministers meeting next week had "a great willingness to say that, basically, nearly everything had been done" to complete Greece's latest bailout review. That would further pave the way for the program to end in August.

For Greece, there is finally light at the end of the tunnel. After nearly eight years of economic and political turmoil, the country is within striking distance of freeing itself from a bailout regime that has been traumatic for its citizens and has badly strained the eurozone, The Wall Street Journal reported. With both Athens and other European capitals eager to put the Greek drama behind them, an exit from the bailout program at its expiration in August is looking likely.

For Greece, 2018 is a crucial year, Bloomberg News reported. The key question in the months ahead for what was once the epicenter of the European credit crisis is: Will it turn the corner and wean itself of external aid like Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus -- something the Greek government wants? Or, will the current bailout program, which ends Aug. 20, be followed by a similar arrangement -- as some observers expect?

Greece may be able to exit the bailout programme established by international authorities as soon as this year, HSBC has said, in a sign of just how far the eurozone has come since the depths of the debt crisis in 2011, the Financial Times reported. The country last year regained access to capital markets, its economy is looking less dreary, and it will have enough cash reserves in August of this year to finance itself for the next “year or so”, said Fabio Balboni, European economist at HSBC.

Greece has reached agreement with its international creditors on reforms required to release the next loan tranche under its current bailout, boosting the leftwing Syriza government’s hopes of achieving a smooth exit from the €86bn programme next August, the Financial Times reported. “The [EU and IMF bailout monitors’] visit is completed, we have closed the [technical] agreement,” Euclid Tsakalotos, finance minister, said after the week-long talks ended on Saturday.

Greece plans to return to the international capital markets early next year with a new seven-year bond issue after successfully completing a €30bn voluntary bond swap this week, according to two people involved in preparing the country’s borrowing strategy for 2018, the Financial Times reported. If market conditions are favourable, two more issues of three- and 10-year bonds would follow by July, ahead of Greece’s expected exit from its current bailout programme next August, the people said.

Greece has successfully completed a €30bn voluntary bond swap aimed at boosting market liquidity and attracting long-term investors, according to people involved in the transaction, the Financial Times reported. “It went extremely well…Take-up exceeded 80 per cent,” one such person said, adding that details of the transaction would be released on Wednesday. The bondholders participating in the swap included local banks and pension funds along with international investors.

The Greek government on Tuesday unveiled an ambitious draft budget for next year, the latest sign the country is making progress in its economic recovery after years of painful austerity and international bailouts, the International New York Times reported. The government projected that the economy will grow 2.5 percent next year, after a 1.6 percent anticipated increase this year, a further sign of Greece’s confidence as it looks to wean itself off the financial assistance it has relied on for the last eight years.

Greece, long the problem child of the eurozone, took a major step on Wednesday toward securing financial independence as it prepares to wean itself off the international bailouts that have kept it afloat for the last eight years, the International New York Times reported. The government’s announcement of a bond swap could help ease a staggering debt burden that at one point threatened to push Greece out of the eurozone.