Any market foray should be first step to full return, gov’t says

Greece wants to disengage its reliance from official creditors by the time its bailout program expires, its government spokesman said on Thursday, as speculation grew that the country's first debt market foray in three years was imminent.

"We are closely monitoring developments in bond markets, we are monitoring trends, and when we consider the time is right we will take the first step towards the markets," government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos told journalists.

A market return would be considered as part of an overall strategy to ensure the country can fully return to markets when its current bailout program ends, he said.

Greece is keen to tap money markets in a test run before its latest bailout expires in August 2018.

The country has hired six banks to arrange its first bond sale since being frozen out of financial markets and almost falling out of euro in 2015, Thomson Reuters market news and data service IFR reported on Wednesday.

[Reuters]