Greece raised 1.56 billion euros (2.12 billion dollars) in an oversubscribed treasury bill issue that came after a EU backup pledge on its debt over the weekend, authorities said. The Greek public debt management agency said the issue of one-year and six-month bills had attracted bids of 3.9 billion euros and 4.6 billion euros, and the state had decided to accept 780 million euros on each batch. Greece had originally wanted to raise a combined 1.2 billion euros from the latest release. The loan drive is Greece's first after its eurozone partners on Sunday offered to lend Athens 30 billion euros (41 billion dollars) this year at a preferential rate in order to calm fears of a default. Greece's total debts were last tallied at about 300 billion euros.
Athens has to find around 11.5 billion euros by next month, part of about 54 billion euros needed for all this year to cover debt and budget needs.
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou on Monday did not rule out use of the rescue mechanism but noted that a decision to activate it would take "some time" and would depend on a variety of factors, not just borrowing costs.
"We effectively now have a mechanism which exists, in detail, regardless of whether we activate it or not," the PM told reporters during a visit to Cyprus.
"We can activate it at any given moment. That is to be evaluated, which cannot happen in a day, it will take some time to evaluate if we need to activate it, and of course this will be linked to various factors, not just spreads."
The gap, or spread, between Greek and German 10-year bonds last week soared to a record high point but on Monday declined after details of the EU support mechanism became known.
13.04.2010
