After lengthy delays, the IMF unblocked part of its aid to Greece on Wednesday, offering a brief respite to the recession-mired country grappling with austerity measures.
The amount released — 3.2 billion euros (US$4.3 billion) — might seem a mere footnote to the 172 billion euros international bailout for Greece in March last year, the second rescue effort after a 2010 aid program foundered.
“Greece’s fiscal effort has been impressive by any measure,” IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said in a statement.
The deep deficit slashing the country has been forced to undertake from the beginning of the program will help get Athens back to the spending levels prior to the crisis, she said, “and has been designed to protect the most vulnerable.”
However, she warned: “Much more remains to be done to achieve the critical mass of reforms needed to boost productivity and lower prices.”
“Looking ahead, Greece needs to radically overhaul its tax administration to bolster tax collections, fight tax evasion and shrink the public sector, in particular through targeted redundancies,” she said.
The IMF executive board approved the release of the funds after completing the first and second reviews of Greece’s economic performance under the program, which saw the board waiving some performance criteria and modifying others.
The EU had acted more swiftly than the IMF, releasing 34.3 billion euros in the middle of last month that had been frozen. The eurozone is expected to approve a another 9.2 billion euros installment in the coming days.
The fresh IMF payment is part of a four-year, 28 billion euros Extended Fund Facility loan.
The IMF released an initial 1.6 billion euros, but froze subsequent payments in view of Athens’ failure to meet the loan program’s criteria and concerns that the debt burden was unsustainable.
In November, after intense negotiations with European authorities, the IMF abandoned its 2020 goal for reducing Greece’s debt burden to 120 percent of GDP and accepted a compromise of a 124 percent debt-to-GDP ratio.
Greece’s debt currently stands at about 170 percent of GDP.
Greece must continue to restructure and strengthen the banking system, Lagarde said, noting that additional financing from eurozone member states to allow Greece to redeem treasury bills from banks could support liquidity and credit creation.
Separately, the IMF also released a 838.8 million euros installment of its loan program to Portugal, while calling the country’s efforts to reform its economy impressive. The latest money released is part of a 78 billion euros bailout agreed in 2011.
Anna Bhobho, a 31-year-old housewife from rural Zimbabwe, was once a silent observer in her home, excluded from financial and family decisionmaking in the deeply patriarchal society. Today, she is a driver of change in her village, thanks to an electric tricycle she owns. In many parts of rural sub-Saharan Africa, women have long been excluded from mainstream economic activities such as operating public transportation. However, three-wheelers powered by green energy are reversing that trend, offering financial opportunities and a newfound sense of importance. “My husband now looks up to me to take care of a large chunk of expenses,
SECTOR LEADER: TSMC can increase capacity by as much as 20 percent or more in the advanced node part of the foundry market by 2030, an analyst said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to lead its peers in the advanced 2-nanometer process technology, despite competition from Samsung Electronics Co and Intel Corp, TrendForce Corp analyst Joanne Chiao (喬安) said. TSMC’s sophisticated products and its large production scale are expected to allow the company to continue dominating the global 2-nanometer process market this year, Chiao said. The world’s largest contract chipmaker is scheduled to begin mass production of chips made on the 2-nanometer process in its Hsinchu fab in the second half of this year. It would also hold a ceremony on Monday next week to
TECH CLUSTER: The US company’s new office is in the Shalun Smart Green Energy Science City, a new AI industry base and cybersecurity hub in southern Taiwan US chip designer Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) yesterday launched an office in Tainan’s Gueiren District (歸仁), marking a significant milestone in the development of southern Taiwan’s artificial intelligence (AI) industry, the Tainan City Government said in a statement. AMD Taiwan general manager Vincent Chern (陳民皓) presided over the opening ceremony for the company’s new office at the Shalun Smart Green Energy Science City (沙崙智慧綠能科學城), a new AI industry base and cybersecurity hub in southern Taiwan. Facilities in the new office include an information processing center, and a research and development (R&D) center, the Tainan Economic Development Bureau said. The Ministry
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities