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Sunday, May. 20, 2012 |  Syndicate content

Greek bailout will miss debt reduction target: euro sources

Page last updated at 04:45 GMT, Thursday, February 16, 2012 - 09:45 EST

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MSN Philippines News:

A long-disputed second bailout for Greece worth 230 billion euros ($300 billion) will fall well short of an agreed debt reduction target, eurozone government sources said Thursday.

A senior official told AFP that a report given to finance ministers showed Greece's total public debt would only fall to 129 percent of Gross Domestic Product by 2020, instead of the 120 percent set as a condition for fresh aid by the EU and International Monetary Fund.

"The level of indebtedness has been calculated at 129 percent" of output, this official said.

He said that as things stood, it would be necessary to find another 5.5 billion euros to keep the overall sums on track, over and above 130 billion of planned loans from eurozone governments for Greece.

The package also includes a deal between Greece and its private creditors to chop another 100 billion euros off the country's 350-billion debt.

An official from another eurozone government told AFP the 129 percent must fall to "within a couple of percentage points" of the original target before his government will proceed with the overall bailout.

A source within a third government insisted that the original target agreed "is still valid for us."

Read the whole story: MSN Philippines News

Greece-World News