Gov’t keeps building up its cash buffer through repos

A favorable decision in Thursday’s Eurogroup that also satisfies the International Monetary Fund, activating the Greek program, could lead the Greek government to issue new bonds with a maturity period of more than a decade, according to a bond market official.

The chances of such a scenario are very small, almost negligible, he added. Therefore, barring a miracle, the main condition of a return to the markets by the Greek state is still a decline in bond yields – especially for the seven-year debt issued in February, according to Finance Ministry sources.

In the meantime the state is building up its cash buffer through repos: In the latest quarterly bulletin on the public debt for the January-Match period, it appears that the state’s short-term borrowing from general government entities climbed to 22.5 billion euros, from 14.9 billion at end-2017.