Government debt

A decade ago, Greece was in the throes of a devastating debt crisis marked by years of austerity, hardship and unrest. Now, officials and investors say 2024 could be the year its rebound is finally complete.

The Greek economy is forecast to grow nearly 3% this year, approaching its pre-crisis size of 2009 and far outpacing the euro zone average of 0.8%.

Cyprus is seeing a promising reduction in its public debt, with figures suggesting a return to 2019 levels. The debt stood at 22.3 billion euros by the end of 2023, showing a slight decrease from €22.4 billion in September of the same year. Notably, the debt had reached €23.8 billion last June.

Ships remained docked at Greek ports and train services were halted on Wednesday as transport workers joined a 24-hour strike by private workers to demand higher pay to cope with rising living costs.

Bus and taxi drivers also walked off the job for a few hours as part of the labor action called by Greece's largest private sector union GSEE.

BELGRADE - Serbia's public debt rose by 26.3 bln dinars to 4,268.1 bln dinars (36.4 bln euros) in February, accounting for 47.8 pct of GDP.

According to figures released by the Public Debt Administration of the Serbian Ministry of Finance, foreign currencies accounted for 77.7 pct of the total public debt at end-February.

The sustainability of Greece's public debt is guaranteed at least until 2030, according to the Bank of Greece (BoG).

The evolution of public debt and gross financing needs in various adverse scenarios shows limited deviations from the basic scenario of the Bank of Greece until the beginning of 2030, as stated in its annual report.

So how are we doing?

Greece will this year complete the sale of its outstanding stakes in five banks bailed out during last decade's debt crisis and raise record revenues from state asset sales, its finance minister told Reuters.

"Bulgaria has had a history of low deficit, low debt to GDP. So that part of the system has worked very well. We can say that the monetary and fiscal situation has worked well since July 1997, when we installed the currency board in Bulgaria. So, it's a big success. Now, the failure side was obvious to me when I was an advisor to President Stoyanov in 1997. And that is corruption.

BELGRADE - Serbia's public debt amounted to 35.62 bln euros at the end of November 2023, the Ministry of Finance said.

The debt was down by around 90 mln euros from 35.71 bln euros at the end of October.

The debt-to-GDP ratio was down, too, declining to 51.5 pct from 51.6 pct at end-October.

The yield of the Greek 10-year bond, the benchmark of the Greek debt market, has now dropped below 3%, at the lowest levels since April 2022, when the main interest rate of the European Central Bank was still at negative levels.