TAIPED chief: Sell-offs target ‘high but feasible’

Greece’s target of 2 billion euros in privatization revenues this year is high but can be met, the chairman of the country’s privatizations agency TAIPED said on Friday.

Greece’s third bailout ends in August and it has agreed with its international lenders to raise 3 billion euros by 2019 from state asset sales.

“Undoubtedly it’s a very high target. It’s a challenge, I would say, for the agency,” Aris Xenofos told Greece’s Alpha 989 radio, according to a transcript of the interview. “But I think it’s a feasible target.”

While privatizations have been a pillar of Greece’s bailouts since 2010, they have raised proceeds of just 5 billion euros, rather than a targeted 50 billion euros, mainly due to the crisis, political and union resistance and bureaucracy.

By June, Greece needs to conclude the lease of a vast seaside property, the sale of gas grid DESFA and launch the sale or the securitization of a stake in electricity utility Public Power Corporation (PPC).

It will later sell minority stakes in water utilities EYDAP and EYATH.

[Reuters]