Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had at one stage warned foreign creditors that Athens would not repay 750 million euros (US$854.25 million) due to the IMF this month unless they provided Athens with immediate liquidity, the Kathimerini newspaper reported last week.
Athens ultimately made the May 12 payment by emptying an IMF holding account.
Citing European sources, the newspaper said Tsipras made the threat in a May 8 letter to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde and European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi.
The Greek government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In his letter, Tsipras said Greece was starved of domestic sources of liquidity as it has been meeting its domestic and foreign debt obligations despite not having received any aid under its 240 billion euro bailout since August last year, the newspaper said.
To restore liquidity, Tsipras proposed that the ECB raise Greece’s treasury bill issuance ceiling; a partial disbursement of loan tranches worth 7.3 billion euros; the return of 1.9 billion euros in profits the ECB made by buying Greek bonds since 2010; and the return of 1.2 billion euros in the eurozone’s bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility.
The letter was viewed as a “possible bluff” and reinforced a climate of mistrust between the two sides, the newspaper said.
Greece’s cash reserves are dwindling and negotiations between Tsipras’s new left-led government and its lenders over a cash-for-reforms deal have been fraught with delays for months.
Last week, Tsipras said that the two sides had found some common ground, but the government would not back down from its red lines such as no cuts to wages and pensions.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last