(Reuters) - Greece has
put the worst of a debt crisis behind it and is considering issuing new debt
within three months, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras told Reuters on Wednesday.
"Greece is back," Samaras told
Reuters at the prime minister's Maximos mansion office in Athens. "Two
years ago, we were the epicenter of financial instability in the area, and we
were an unstable country in a relatively stable region. Now the situation is
totally different: Greece has stabilized, both politically and economically and
there is growing instability around Greece."
He was speaking on Wednesday, a day after
Athens secured 8.3 billion euros ($11.5 billion) in fresh aid from euro zone
finance ministers, paving the way for the country to meet debt obligations in
May and boosting expectations of a return to bond markets to end its four-year
exclusion.
"The timing of any such offering is
subject to market conditions and we have not ruled out the possibility of
coming to market as early as during the first half of 2014," he said. Officials
have previously told Reuters that Athens is eyeing a sale of between 1.5
billion-2 billion euros of five-year bonds in a test issue as it tries to get
back on its feet after two bailouts worth 240 billion euros from the European
Union and International Monetary Fund.
Samaras, who took power in 2012 at the
height of the debt crisis, saw early signs that the economy is recovering along
with market sentiment, citing new business start-ups that are creating jobs for
youth. "We've hit rock bottom and now this is the curve going up," he
said. "We are at the very beginning of the curve going up."
Athens expects gross domestic product to
post modest growth of 0.6 percent this year after a brutal recession that left
the economy a quarter smaller. "The most important words now are stability
and growth," Samaras said. "I must not lose my direction, straight
all the way, I'm not going to zig zag."
Record unemployment and cash problems facing
companies and households remained significant issues, but Greece has now turned
a page on the crisis, he said. "The image and the perception of Greece
internationally has changed also. This is a new psychology and this is a new
sentiment taking place in Greece and this is why I'm saying Greece is
back," Samaras said.
(Πηγή: reuters.com)