Greek Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis was scheduled to meet IMF managing director Christine Lagarde in Washington yesterday ahead of the country’s Thursday deadline for its next payment to the fund. Varoufakis and Lagarde were to have informal discussions on the Greek government’s reform program, according to the IMF and a Greek Ministry of Finance statement released on Saturday.
A government source told reporters that Varoufakis “will also meet with US Treasury officials” tomorrow, including US Under Secretary for International Affairs Nathan Sheets.
The meetings come amid speculation that Athens might fail to pay a 460 million euro (US$501.17 million) IMF installment if forced to choose between the IMF and paying government workers.
Greece has not received the funds remaining in its 240 billion euro EU-IMF bailout package as Brussels has demanded it first approve Greece’s revised reform plan. However, Greek Alternate Minister of Revenue Dimitris Mardas on Saturday said that Athens does have the money needed for the IMF payment.
“The payment to the IMF will take place on April 9. There is money for the payment of salaries, pensions and whatever else is needed in the next week,” he told Greek television network Mega TV.
The IMF meanwhile denied a report in German magazine Der Spiegel that it had withdrawn IMF staff temporarily in protest at the Greek government’s slowness in implementing reforms.
Greek Minister of Productive Reconstruction, the Environment and Energy Panagiotis Lafazanis, who leads the far-left wing of the SYRIZA party, accused Greece’s European partners of being annoyed at having to work with a left-wing government.
“The institutions and especially the German establishment are treating the government with doctrinal superstition and the country like a semi-colonial state,” he told the Agora newspaper. “They are not interested in the content of our proposals, but they are bothered those proposals are coming from a radical left-led government... That annoys them to the point of hysteria.”
Meanwhile, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has stepped up his courting of Russia. Tsipras, who was already scheduled to visit Russia next month for its annual Victory Day parade, is now also set to travel to Moscow on Wednesday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Tsipras has made no secret of seeking closer ties to Russia.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors