International Monetary Fund may start bailout review last week of October – Greece government source

Greece’s economy will suffer a less severe recession this year than its global lenders assumed in drafting the country’s new bailout program, Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said on Tuesday. The conversation also touched on the topic of promotion of economic cooperation.

The heads of a European Union and global Monetary Fund mission may visit Athens to start a first review of Greece’s latest worldwide bailout in the last week of October, a senior Greek official told Reuters on Tuesday.

They incorporated the augmentation of credit developments, lower interest rates, and in addition an amplified beauty period for the reimbursement of bailout advances, he said. “That is what led the prime minister to say yesterday that we can return to growth (in the second half of 2016)”, he told parliament in a debate on the government’s four-year program.

“The implementation of the bailout is necessary but it is not enough on its own”.

“We could not include that in the draft budget yesterday because we don’t have the official projections for the third quarter but it’s an estimate”.

Government debt is seen rising to 197.7 per cent of gross domestic product in 2016, including the new loans. Greece is meant to achieve a primary surplus of 3.5 per cent of GDP a year from 2018 under the August deal.

It wants the first review to be wrapped up soon so it can start talks on a debt relief before the end of the year.

Mr Tsipras, who was re-elected on 20 September, won the backing of all 155 lawmakers in the 300-seat parliament who support his radical left-right coalition.