Debt management agency looks to exotic options
| |
Constantine Karamanlis: The high
debt burden remains a pressing
concern for the Greek prime
minister |
FOLLOWING THE FINAL revision of Greece's fiscal accounts, the result of an audit undertaken a short time after the conservative government came to power early in March 2004, the country's
2004 budget deficit skyrocketed to 6.1% of GDP and its public debt to 110.5% of GDP, surpassing even the most pessimistic projections.
Under these circumstances the country will have to convince credit agencies and markets that its public finances have entered into a new, sustainable, virtuous cycle if it is to win a credit upgrade.
Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings responded to the country's deteriorating public finances by cutting the long-term sovereign credit rating to A from A+ in the last quarter of 2004 while underlining the lack of a strategy to achieve a sustained decline...
