Government debt

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.

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.

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.

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.

In the year 2000, the US government debt was $3.5 trillion, equal to 35% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). By 2022, the debt was $24 trillion, equal to 95% of GDP. The US debt is soaring, hence America's current debt crisis. Yet both Republicans and Democrats are missing the solution: stopping America's wars of choice and slashing military outlays.

Not much progress is expected on the reform of European Union debt rules at EU finance ministers' talks on Friday, officials said, as Germany and France remain at odds over whether there should be a minimum annual debt reduction obligatory for all.

Republican People's Party (CHP) leader and Nation Alliance's presidential candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has pledged the citizens to make regulations in order to ease the burden of credit card debts if he is elected as the president in the May 28 polls.

The Greek economy has made significant progress since the previous decade's major debt crisis, which was the result of reckless fiscal policy and loss of competitiveness.

Ratings agencies expect the government to be formed after the second polls to follow the path of reforms and pro-growth policies, along the Greek debt sustainability path already drawn. However, they point out that the challenges Athens will face are significant and extend beyond the economic front.

Fourteen years after a debt crisis that saw Greece nearly crash out of the euro, single parent Niki Klaoudatou says she worries more about money now than she did during the worst years of the country's economic meltdown.