Bond takings to be used for IMF payments
Maintaining the cash buffer is among the key priorities of the Public Debt Management Agency (PDMA). This safety cushion now comes to 31 billion euros, half of which originated from the European Stability Mechanism’s last bailout tranche, while the rest concerns domestic savings and cash held by state entities.
Contrary to the recommendations of many foreign analysts about the use or reduction of the cash buffer, given the cost of maintaining it, PDMA insists that it ought to be protected until Greece’s credit rating returns to investment grade, according to bank sources.
Therefore, although until recently the repayment of the expensive part of the International Monetary Fund’s loans to Greece was supposed to be made using part of the cash buffer, sources say that PDMA has changed its mind. To speed up the process, it has decided that the 2.85 billion euros due to the IMF will not repaid through the cash buffer but via revenues from this year’s bond issues.
PDMA has already exceeded its bond revenues target for 2019 by 2 billion euros and one cannot rule out any other bond issues by the end of the year after the five-year, the seven-year and the 10-year issues during 2019.
