Greece will pay a loan tranche due on April 9 to the International Monetary Fund on time, its deputy finance minister DimitrisMardassaid today."We strive to be able to pay our obligations on time, Mardassaid. "We are ready to pay on April 9.”
Mardas said state revenue in March had topped targets without providing figures, adding that progress had been made in talks with the country's official international on its latest the reforms list.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has saidGreecewould receive fresh funds only once its creditors approve the comprehensive list of reforms Athens has presented.
Talks betweenGreeceand its creditors have stopped last week without a deal to unlock remaining Greek bailout funds urgently needed to stave off a potential default.
A Greek government official said Tuesday that the current phase of talks held in Brussels betweenGreeceand its creditors at the European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund and European Commission had ended the previous evening.
The two sides have been discussing a list of reforms Athens says will generate more than 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) in revenues.
The Greek government is hoping the proposals on such things as tax evasion and dealing with corruption will be deemed credible enough by lenders to release the remaining funds — more than 7 billion euros — inGreece'sinternational bailout.
Without the money,Greecewill be unable to meet upcoming financial commitments, a prospect that would once again trigger talk of a Greek bankruptcy and exit — or Grexit — from the euro.
Greeceis fast running out of cash and itseuro zoneand International Monetary Fund lenders have frozen bailout aid until the new leftist-led government reaches agreement on a package of reforms.
That prompted the interior minister to suggest this week that Athens would prioritize wages and pensions over the roughly 450 million euro ($489 million) payment to the IMF, though the government denied that was its stance.
Euro zoneofficials then saidGreecetold them it will run out of money on April 9, which the finance ministry denied saying.
Athens has not received bailout funds since August last year and has resorted to last-ditch measures such as borrowing from state entities via repo transactions to tide it through the cash crunch.
The government is hoping approval of its latest reforms package will unlock remaining aid of 7.2 billion euros under its EU/IMF bailout and lead to the return of about 1.9 billion euros in profits made by the European Central Bank on Greek bonds.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/greece-ready-make-imf-payment-next-week