Financial market

''Government has a major priority to provide conditions for Bulgarian industry to be competitive in international markets'', Energy Minister Temenujka Petkova said in the studio of the morning block of BNT.

Despite government assurances that Athens does not yet need to tap the money markets and has the luxury of the cash buffer as it waits for the right moment for a new bond issue, analysts appear far from optimistic about the prospects of the Greek economy.

Minos Zombanakis was one of the great financial innovators of his age, leading the wave of change which transformed the banking world in the latter part of the 20th century. His major contribution was a new type of loan which enabled banks to club together across borders to lend large sums of money to corporations and countries, the so-called syndicated loan.

Greece must regain market confidence as soon as possible and tap bond markets before an available cash buffer is depleted to demonstrate that its economy has emerged from crisis, the central bank said in a monetary policy report on Thursday.

The government should avoid tapping the money markets for at least another five months and aim at short-term paper rather than a benchmark issue, says Gianluca Ziglio, senior fixed income analyst at Continuum Economics.

Greece's Piraeus Bank is monitoring debt capital markets to spot a window of opportunity for a debt issue as part of its capital enhancement plan, its chief executive told Reuters on Wednesday.

"Piraeus Bank is executing a capital enhancement plan, as already communicated to the market since mid-2018," Christos Megalou said.

Turkey's main stock exchange Borsa Istanbul has started work on setting up a swap market, beginning with foreign currency markets, it said in a statement on Aug. 27. 

Greece's 10-year bonds continue to entail significant risks, funds and analysts tell Kathimerini, recommending shorter maturity securities instead.

They also note that a new short-term bond issue would get a better reception from the market, while warning that the government should not rush to the capital markets for political or other reasons in what remains a difficult environment.

The recent political unrest in Italy is forcing Greece to freeze its summer bond-issuing plans, with Finance Ministry sources scrambling to calm investor fears that a full return to the markets in the fall might generate.

The improvement observed in Greek bond prices last month convinced the government to start making plans for its next market outing to take advantage of the more favorable conditions for the country and move a step closer to the much prophesied "clean exit" from the bailout program in August.