Financial crises

The government strategy after Greece secures investment grade and opens up to a larger number of investors is to make use of part of the high amount of cash available in a productive way and toward the reduction of the public debt.

The Turkish automotive industry's exports grew by 9 percent year-on-year in June to more than $3 billion, according to the Automotive Industry Exporters' Association (OİB).

For a third time this year, monthly exports were above the $3 billion mark, said Baran Çelik, the board chair of OİB.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has pledged to repay some of Greece's bailout loans ahead of schedule.

In an interview with Bloomberg, he said he was keen to a make a "commitment to investors" at the start of his second term in office.

"The first goal, and I think it's a very tangible goal, is to get to investment grade before the end of the year," he said.

The major growth of foreign investments in the Greek housing market continued in the year's first quarter.

According to the data contained in the Bank of Greece's monetary policy report published on Friday, during the first three months of 2023 about 497 million euros flowed into the country, up 33% from the same quarter last year; at that time €374 million euros had been invested.

A reduction in the cost of borrowing by 1.7 percentage points has been achieved thanks to the upgrades to Greece's credit rating by rating agencies during the last four years. 

Greece plans four bond reopenings via auctions in the second half of the year to boost liquidity on the secondary market, the Public Debt Management Agency (PDMA) said on Tuesday.

The continuation of the economic recovery and Greece's return to investment grade after almost 13 years is what markets expect after the elections.

Fears that the British economy is heading for recession mounted sharply after the Bank of England raised borrowing costs by more than anticipated.

The Bank of England on June 22 decided to lift its main interest rate by half a percentage point to a fresh 15-year high of 5 percent.

Greece is heading into an election weekend with its public debt trading near the levels enjoyed by first-class peripheral countries, a decade after a debt crisis forced a dramatic reshaping of its borrowing.

Japan's consumer prices rose 3.2 percent year-on-year in May, slowing from 3.4 percent in April, government data showed on June 23.

The figure, which excludes volatile fresh food prices, beat market expectations and was higher than the 3.1 percent recorded in March.