An inspection team of international lenders has finished its review of Greece’s austerity program, paving the way for another 10 billion euros (US$13 billion) aid payment, a source with knowledge of the talks said on Saturday.
The deal reached on Friday, concludes the first review by the so-called “troika” of the European Commission, the IMF and the European Central Bank since they unlocked fresh aid in December last year, staving off a chaotic bankruptcy.
In exchange for the December deal in Greece’s 240 billion euro bailout, Athens passed a fresh round of austerity measures.
“The third review mission of the program was completed last night in Athens with a staff level agreement,” one delegate with knowledge of the discussions said.
The official added the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers and the IMF’s board would each likely discuss the agreement next month, a condition for the money to actually be paid.
Klaus Regling, the head of the eurozone’s rescue funds, said on Friday that the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), under which Greece’s rescue is handled, stood ready to disburse 10 billion euros to Athens once conditions were met.
“Greece would get 2.8 billion euros after the milestones have been met. In addition, 7.2 billion [euros are] available in bonds to recapitalize the banks. This is based on a tranche already approved last December,” he said.
Greece has received about 200 billion euros in rescue loans since its first bailout in May 2010. However, despite imposing a 75 percent debt cut on private-sector bondholders and receiving debt relief from its official lenders last year, it is still far from a return to the bond markets.
After a meeting of EU finance ministers, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said a 2.8 billion euro tranche of funds this month had not been released yet because Greece had not fulfilled some of the bailout milestones.
“The Greek side explained it is fully committed and we hope that this will be the case by the next meeting,” Schaeuble said.
The recapitalization of Greece’s banks and shrinking the country’s spendthrift public sector have been key issues on the agenda of talks with the troika, which resumed its visit in Athens earlier this month.
Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras met his coalition partners on Saturday to discuss the hot topics and the progress of the troika review.
After the meeting, Greek Deputy Finance Minister Christos Staikouras said talks with the troika would be wrapped up by today.
“I believe the ultimate details of a deal with the troika will be finalized by Monday night,” Staikouras said.
Greece has agreed to dismiss 15,000 public sector workers and hire as many younger employees, he said.
About 4,000 workers will leave by the end of the year and another 11,000 next year, party officials said. The state is expected to cut more than 180,000 by 2015.
Greek socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos said the troika was expected to approve the political leaders’ proposals by yesterday.
Under Greece’s current bailout plan agreed in November last year, Athens has to cut 150,000 public sector jobs overall from 2010 to 2015, about a fifth of the total, through hiring curbs, retirement and dismissals.
“We have designed a commonly accepted framework which I hope the troika will accept by Sunday night,” Venizelos said. “We must close all the issues.”
Lay-offs are a sensitive issue in Greece, where unemployment has hit a record high of 27.2 percent and the economy is now in its sixth year of recession, but recent polls show that most Greeks want the reform of the public sector and its services.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the