By T. Tsiros
[email protected]
The Greek government debt posted a noteworthy increase in the first three months of 2018, with the finance ministry’s quarterly report listing the figure at 343.74 billion euros, up from 328.7 billion euros at the end of 2017 – an increase of 15.037 billion euros.
In comments to “N”, a high-ranking Public Debt Management Organization official said the increase was due, primarily, to short-term repos-type loans assumed by entities falling under the general government. The same official said the trend was “positive”, given that the repos replace, to a certain degree, the direct funding allocated by the general government to the specific entities. Such funding, however, would have entailed more borrowing by the general government.
The added expense, in the long term, would have been roughly 600 million euros in interest payments.
A quarterly rise in the general government debt as a result of repos is also demonstrated by the fact that until late 2017 until March 2018, the Greek state’s cash reverses also increased significantly – from a mere 934 million at the end of December 2017 to 12.328 billion euros by the end of March 2018.
The former figure includes a so-called “cushion” for the post-bailout period. The “cushion” was estimated at 6.197 billion euros by the end of March, with the prospect being for the reserve to exceed 15 billion euros by Aug. 20, 2018 – when the final memorandum program disbursement is completed by the ESM.
