Greece to start selling domestic assets to ease debts
Baku, May 24 (AZERTAC). The Greek government has said it will begin to sell stakes in a number of domestic corporations "immediately" in order to raise cash to help reduce its massive debts.
These include stakes in the telecoms firm OTE, state-owned Postbank and the ports of Athens and Thessaloniki.
Earlier, European stock markets fell, partly due to continuing fears about a possible debt restructuring in Greece.
Weak eurozone economic data also hit investor sentiment.
"The cabinet decided to proceed immediately with the sale of stakes in OTE, the Postbank, the Athens and Thessaloniki ports and the Thessaloniki water company in order to front-load its ambitious privatisation programme," said Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou.
"To accelerate the process, the creation of a sovereign wealth fund composed of privatisation and real-estate assets was also decided."
He added that the government was "determined to continue and accelerate" plans to cut the country`s debt.
We`ve learned that there isn`t going to be a `soft restructuring` of Greek debt any time soon - probably ever. It will be `hard` or it will not happen at all”
European stock markets were down sharply in afternoon trading, with the UK`s FTSE 100 ending the day 1.9% lower, France`s Cac 40 losing 2.1%, and Germany`s Dax falling 2%. In the US, the main Dow Jones index was down almost 1% by mid-afternoon trading.
Energy and mining stocks were particularly badly hit, as the oil price fell back towards recent lows on fears the global recovery may be slowed by debt problems in Europe and tighter monetary policy in China.
Sentiment was not helped by the latest purchasing managers index (PMI) for the eurozone - a survey of business expansion plans - which indicated that growth in France and Germany slowed significantly this month.
Any such economic slowdown will intensify market concerns about whether some eurozone governments - chief among them Greece - will ever be able to pay off their debts.
Meanwhile, in an interview for German weekly der Spiegel, the Luxembourg Prime Minister and head of the eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker, reiterated his idea that Greece could be granted a "soft restructuring" or debt "reprofiling", but only if its government met demanding policy targets.
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