Euro zone likely to reach deal on Greek aid payment

BRUSSELS - Euro zone finance ministers are likely to approve the next tranche of loans to Greece on Tuesday although the money is unlikely to be disbursed before December and a deal on debt reduction may need further talks.

Officials familiar with preparations for the finance ministers' meeting expect a "political endorsement in principle" on unfreezing loans to Athens, after Greece completed almost all the reforms that were required.

"It is clear that Greece has delivered," the chairman of the euro zone finance ministers, Jean-Claude Juncker, told reporters before the meeting.

"We must still reach an understanding on several details and I would expect that the chances are good that we will come to a final and joint solution this evening. But I'm not entirely certain... about the matter," he said.

Hours before the meeting, set to start at 1600 GMT, views on the outcome were still quite far apart among the individual ministers, but a compromise was possible, officials said.
"I hope, I believe and I want to a find a solution tonight," French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said in Paris.

But Finnish Finance Minister Jutta Urpilainen was less optimistic.

"I'm not at all sure that it will happen. More information is needed before a decision can be made, so the situation is very much open," she said after briefing parliament in Helsinki.

Greece got a second financing programme from the euro zone and the International Monetary Fund in February, but two subsequent parliamentary elections and a deep depression threw its reforms and fiscal consolidation off course.

Lending was frozen in June and to get it going again Greece had to show it was fully committed to a detailed package of economic reforms or "prior actions".

But the euro zone and the IMF also want to be sure that Greek debt, expected to be almost 190 percent of GDP next year, will fall at some point to a more sustainable 120 percent, so that they will not have to keep financing Athens.

The IMF and the euro zone are at odds on whether to shift the original target date for Greece to do that from 2020 to 2022, torn between the need to retain market confidence and allowing the Greek economy some breathing space.

Reducing the debt

The ministers will also discuss how to reduce debt in a country where the economy is expected to contract for a sixth year running in 2013.

The talks will be based on a debt sustainability analysis prepared by the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank.

Options include halving the interest on existing, bilateral loans to Greece from the current 150 basis points above financing costs, lengthening their maturities, lowering fees charged by the temporary bailout fund EFSF and a debt buy-back.

Germany has floated an idea that Greece could buy back half of its 60 billion euros in bonds remaining in private hands, offering 25 cents per euro.

Euro zone officials have asked for a legal analysis of a debt buy-back and a more operational description for the Tuesday talks. A senior French official said a decision on the buy-back could even be taken on Tuesday.

"It's possible as soon as tonight, it's an option on the menu," the official said.

German Deputy Finance Minister Steffen Kampeter said that if a deal on cutting Greek debt eluded euro zone finance ministers on Tuesday, work would continue this week.

Once a deal is done, proposals on how to cut Greek debt and provide additional financing can be sent to national parliaments for approval, a step expected to be completed by Nov. 30.

This will give Athens time to complete the few outstanding "prior actions". International lenders will check if the remaining reforms are in place on Nov. 28 and euro zone finance ministers will make a final decision to pay the next tranche to Athens on Dec. 3, according to the schedule seen by Reuters.

Greece and the European Commission would then sign a revised memorandum of understanding on Dec. 4 and Greece would get the money on Dec. 5.

Having missed two tranche payments because of the suspension of the programme, Greece should now get a total of 44 billion euros if the next tranche, due in December, is paid out together with the overdue ones.

More than half of that total is cash to recapitalize Greek banks after Greece's debt restructuring hurt their capital base. But some officials said incomplete data on the recapitalization might result in the payout of 31 billion euros, rather than the full 44 billion.

The ministers will also have to decide how to finance two extra years, until 2016, they gave Greece to reach the target of a primary surplus that would allow the country to start cutting its debt pile in a sustainable way.

The troika estimated that such an extension would entail almost 33 billion euros more in financing for Athens, which is politically difficult because of growing opposition to bailouts in many euro zone countries, notably Germany and Finland.

European Central Bank policymaker Joerg Asmussen said on Sunday the euro zone should agree on just two years of funding for Greece and leave further help to be decided later, a view likely to irk the IMF, which wants a permanent solution. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

UK ‘excited’ over trade with Philippines

LONDON—The Philippines is a “hugely exciting” market where the United Kingdom is keen on boosting reciprocal investment.

Key trade officials here bared this bright outlook, noting that the UK was setting its sights on Southeast Asia as a priority growth area amid the continuing dim prospects in Western economies.

They said the UK hoped to step up trade with growing markets to combat a general sense of pessimism over economic numbers here and in the euro zone.

Nick Baird, chief executive of UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), the state body that links UK firms to the global market, said that British firms were looking at ways to tap the Philippines’ robust economy and invest in major infrastructure, health care and retail-related projects.

“I think that for us, the huge opportunities there are certainly around big infrastructure projects, health… We’re also very interested in areas I would describe as building on and working with countries’ growing middle classes, so [it’s about] providing better education, health services, accessing the consumption of these middle classes through the retail sector,” Baird told Asean reporters on a visit here.



Enjoys Brits’ confidence

Baird said the Philippines enjoyed the confidence of the UK business community, particularly of Richard Lambert, former head of the UK employers group, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), and now chancellor of the University of Warwick, a top British university.

“We have a lot of very strong champions for the Philippine market. I was talking recently to Mr. Lambert, former head of CBI, which is our biggest business organization and he’s saying the Philippines is a hugely exciting market,” said Baird.

The Philippines is currently regarded among the world’s booming markets and is expected to retain in the second semester the 6.1-percent growth rate it posted in the first half of the year.

International credit ratings agencies Moody’s Investors Service, Fitch Ratings, and Standard and Poor’s upgraded the country’s rating to a notch just below investment grade, citing the Philippines’ steady growth pace.

The UK is sending a trade mission to the Philippines this week to touch base with the government and business sector and discuss possible partnerships in social infrastructure and transport.

Participating UK companies include Arup, Tata Steel International, Kier Construction, Tony Gee & Partners, GE Healthcare, Ryder Architecture, IMC Worldwide, SKM Colin Buchanan and KM&T, top firms in construction, design and architecture, project management and consultancy, services and supply chain management, according to the UK Embassy in Manila.

Total bilateral trade between the Philippines from January to August of this year was placed at 512.9 million British pounds (P33.8 billion), a five-percent growth over the same period last year.

‘Asean is very important’

Such an economic glow in the Philippines, also mirrored across the region, is a bright spot amid continuing economic troubles in the euro zone and the slow recovery in the United States. The latest UK growth rate was placed at one percent and the struggle to raise this is expected in the next few years.

“The Asean is really very important to us not just because this is such, collectively, a huge economy, comparable in size to China and Japan, bigger than India, but also because in many of the countries, we have good strong positive relationships,” Baird said.

Expand export capacity

He said the UK hoped to establish greater two-way trade with Asean firms, stepping up both export and inward investments. Currently, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are among the UK’s major trade and investment partners.

More than half of UK exports go to the developed but currently struggling markets and it has only a 1.2-percent share of imports in major growth markets, including the whole of Asean.

“Britain wants to hugely expand its export capacity, with particular focus on the growth markets and, in that, the Asean markets have a special place for us. And second, this is a country that is massively open to foreign investors and companies of all kinds. It’s very easy to set up business here,” he said.

He said the UK aimed to double its trade with each of the Asean countries by 2015. And while concerns about political stability, corruption and business ease may remain, the UK holds the view that there is “far less risk to trade with Asean than there is to trade with China, Africa or India,” he said.

Giving Asia attention

“We have been trading successfully in the last few years in our European backyard and with the United States, but of course those markets are still weak and we need to get much better trading into the big growth markets of Asia, Latin America and Africa,” Baird said.

The UKTI, through the year-old UK Asean Business Council, is hoping to facilitate this exchange through spreading greater Asean market awareness to UK firms, said the council’s executive director, Tom Burden.

“We are working on raising awareness of Asean markets in the UK. It’s really about giving Asia the attention it deserves,” Burden told reporters in a separate briefing.

source: business.inquirer.net