Debt

Spanish government debt redemptions due this week helped push Italian 10-year bonds higher as investors bet that a sell-off that sent the yields to the most versus Spain’s in two-and-a-half years this week was excessive.

Italy’s 10-year yields fell three basis points, or 0.03 percentage point, to 2.51 percent, the biggest slide since October 21.

The average household disposable income shrank by 4.3 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2014, leading to a 1.6 percent reduction in consumption and a further drop in money saving rates, according to Hellenic Statistical Authority figures released on Monday. Nevertheless investments posted an increase.

The International Monetary Fund, IMF, has launched a monitoring mission to Macedonia tasked with determining its ability to repay its external debt.

What has been leaked so far regarding the results of the stress tests on Greece’s lenders, which are due to be published on Sunday, appears positive.

Greece needs a healthy, private banking sector if it wants to increase growth and boost entrepreneurship as it tries to recover from the crisis.

By Vangelis Mandravelis

Eurostat has frozen the securitization of properties that the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (TAIPED) had been planning.

Seizure of Tycoons' Yachts, Villas, Airplanes....

Tax Administration, with our money, credited the biggest debtors, who owe more than 400 million euros, allowing them payment in installments. Meanwhile, they are enjoying in their luxury cars, yachts and airplanes.

Bulgaria's gross foreign debt totalled EUR 38.2B as of end-August, increasing 2.2% from a year earlier and 2.3% higher compared with end-2013, the central bank has said.

Gross foreign debt was equivalent to 94.3% of projected 2014 Gross Domestic Product as of end-August, the Bulgarian National Bank said in a statement on Thursday.

Bulgaria has remitted almost 84% of Afghanistan's debt accumulated in the 70s and 80s of the 20th century and rescheduled the remaining debt for 10 years.

The Government today approved the intergovernmental agreement between the two countries signed on September 17 to settle the debt totaling USD 50.6 million, Dnevnik.bg informs.

While old debts to the state have grown to 70.1 billion euros, after adding another billion in September, an eagerly anticipated regulation for the provision of new payment programs is being delayed due to reactions from the country’s creditors and the responsible ministers’ inability to agree on a proposal.

A review of the European banking sector due to be released on Oct. 26 should bring clarity on Greece's funding needs, the head of the monetary union's bailout fund said on Monday.

Klaus Regling, head of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), also said the euro zone should keep the funds it is allocating for crisis resolution for future use rather than invest them in the economy now.