The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will close its Athens office, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced on Tuesday after meeting with the fund’s boss in Washington. The IMF helped fund Greece’s bailout when it struggled with the financial crisis. Besides the fund, other eurozone countries have also contributed.
Mitsotakis hopes that the IMF’s move to shut down its office
will open a new chapter of a positive relationship, after several major contradictions
between the two sides while managing the crisis.
Greece exited the third and last bailout in August 2018. Now
its economy is reviving after a debt crisis that resulted in a severe
recession. Both the IMF and the eurozone, which together lent Greece over 250
billion euro, are closely watching the country’s fiscal progress.
Mitsotakis told
IMF Chief Kristalina Georgieva:
“In the last six
months, we have ushered a new period of growth and effective structural
reforms. I welcome our common decision to close down the IMF office within the
next months and continue to cooperate as a country that has emerged from the
austere framework of supervision by the IMF.”
According to an agreement with its official lenders, Greece
has to reach primary budget surpluses (excluding debt servicing commissions) of
3.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) each year up to 2022 and 2.2% after that.
Athens hopes that the target will get reduced soon, as its
finances are doing much better in recent years.