Greece’s finance ministry on Friday issued a forecast pinpointing the primary budget surplus for last year, 2018, at 3.9 percent of GDP, whereas hours after an ESM “nod”, the ministry also announced that it will move towards paying off a portion of an IMF loan earlier than its maturity.
The finance ministry said the outstanding IMF loan due for early repayment is accompanied by an interest rate of around 5 percent, significantly higher than the “soft loans” extended to Athens by European creditors over three successive bailouts.
A bulletin issued by the ministry notes that the creditor-mandated target for the primary budget surplus was again exceeded in 2018, with the official figure pending a Eurostat announcement on April 23.
As far as the early repayment of the IMF debt, the ministry said a portion of the cash reserves accumulated by the Greek state through a “fiscal over-performance over the past four years” will be diverted to an early repayment of the costlier portion of the state’s borrowing.
