Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Friday said his government would not back down from its red lines in negotiations with its foreign lenders, but said a deal must be reached soon following months of talks.
Athens is fast running out of cash and talks with EU and IMF lenders on more aid have been deadlocked over their demands for Greece to implement reforms, including pension cuts and labor-market liberalization.
Tsipras said the two sides had largely agreed on fiscal targets and value-added tax rates, but disagreed on labor issues and pension reform. He said an accord should include low primary budget surplus targets for this fiscal year and a debt restructuring.
“The deal must close there is no doubt about it,” Tsipras told a press conference. “However, some cannot have in the back of their minds the idea that, as time goes by, the Greek side’s resilience will be tested and its red lines will fade out. If some people have it in the back of their minds, they should forget it.”
Athens has depended on money from its 240 billion euro (US$275 billion) EU/IMF bailout to keep paying its bills since 2010. It has not received any loan tranches since August last year. Greece hopes to reach a deal by the end of the month.
Earlier on Friday, the Greek Ministry of Finance said it had paid public sector wages due in the middle of this month, confirming scheduled payments as the country struggles to stay solvent, although it might find it harder to meet wage and pension commitments later this month, as well as debt payments due next month.
For months, the government has been borrowing from different parts of the state administration to pay the wages and pensions of public sector workers.
Tsipras, who came to power in January on promises to end austerity measures, said the government would not agree to further cuts to wages and pensions, a highly sensitive issue in Greece, which is in the midst of a six-year recession, rising poverty and joblessness.
“From this podium I want to assure the Greek people that there is no possibility or chance that the Greek government will back down on pension and labor issues,” he said.
Meanwhile, ratings firm Fitch kept Greece’s high-risk credit rating unchanged on Friday, saying the risk that the eurozone country would default on its debt was a “real possibility.”
Fitch Ratings affirmed the “CCC” rating it gave the debt-riddled eurozone country in late March in a two-notch downgrade from “B.”
“Lack of market access, uncertain prospects of timely disbursement from official institutions and tight liquidity conditions in the domestic banking sector are putting extreme pressure on Greek government funding,” Fitch said in a statement. “We expect that the government will survive the current liquidity squeeze without running arrears on privately held bonds, but default is a real possibility.”
The ratings firm forecast zero growth in the economy this year, with risks “heavily tilted” toward a contraction, as the country runs out of cash and faces debt payments to its creditors.
Still, Fitch said it was likely that Greece would reach a compromise deal with its official creditors.
Additional reporting by AFP
Taiwan’s rapidly aging population is fueling a sharp increase in homes occupied solely by elderly people, a trend that is reshaping the nation’s housing market and social fabric, real-estate brokers said yesterday. About 850,000 residences were occupied by elderly people in the first quarter, including 655,000 that housed only one resident, the Ministry of the Interior said. The figures have nearly doubled from a decade earlier, Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) said, as people aged 65 and older now make up 20.8 percent of the population. “The so-called silver tsunami represents more than just a demographic shift — it could fundamentally redefine the
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
Businesses across the global semiconductor supply chain are bracing themselves for disruptions from an escalating trade war, after China imposed curbs on rare earth mineral exports and the US responded with additional tariffs and restrictions on software sales to the Asian nation. China’s restrictions, the most targeted move yet to limit supplies of rare earth materials, represent the first major attempt by Beijing to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over foreign companies to target the semiconductor industry, threatening to stall the chips powering the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. They prompted US President Donald Trump on Friday to announce that he would impose an additional
Pegatron Corp (和碩), a key assembler of Apple Inc’s iPhones, on Thursday reported a 12.3 percent year-on-year decline in revenue for last quarter to NT$257.86 billion (US$8.44 billion), but it expects revenue to improve in the second half on traditional holiday demand. The fourth quarter is usually the peak season for its communications products, a company official said on condition of anonymity. As Apple released its new iPhone 17 series early last month, sales in the communications segment rose sequentially last month, the official said. Shipments to Apple have been stable and in line with earlier expectations, they said. Pegatron shipped 2.4 million notebook
RSS