NEWS

Negative debt sale puts Greece back on investor map

Negative debt sale puts Greece back on investor map

In what was seen as a clear sign that Greece is regaining the confidence of international markets, investors on Wednesday bought its short-term debt at a loss.

According to the Public Debt Management Agency, Greece sold 13-week treasury bills at a yield of -0.02 percent, raising 487.5 million euros.

The yield decline follows a trend observed in other European countries and comes on the heels of the European Central Bank trimming interest rates 0.1 percentage point to -0.5 percent in September.

The previous 13-week T-bill sale took place in August with a yield of 0.10 percent.

Buying debt at a loss means investors are willing to get back less than what they paid and that they are confident about the prospects of the Greek economy, as the 1.5 billion euros raised in Tuesday’s reopening of Greece’s 10-year bond with a record low yield of 1.5 percent also showed.

“To put it informally, they are paying us to lend us money,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Wednesday, adding that Greece is “already in the markets with lower interest rates than ever before.” “We are ready to repay our expensive IMF loan,” he said.

Investors’ new confidence in the Greek economy, which is forecast to grow by 2.8 percent next year, comes just over a year after Greece exited its bailout program.

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