Greece: Talks on IMF rescue to end rather soon
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Greece's negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a 15-billion-euro (about 20 billion U.S. dollars) rescue will end rather soon, Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstaninou said in Washington on Sunday.
![Greece's Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou attends a news conference at the World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings in Washington D.C., capital of the United States, April 25, 2010. [Zhang Jun/Xinhua]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20100426/000cf1bdd03f0d3f334108.jpg "Greece's Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou attends a news conference at the World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings in Washington D.C., capital of the United States, April 25, 2010. [Zhang Jun/Xinhua]") |
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Greece's Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou attends a news conference at the World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings in Washington D.C., capital of the United States, April 25, 2010. [Zhang Jun/Xinhua] |
"What I can say at this moment is that we are confident these negotiations ... will be concluded rather soon," said Papaconstaninou at a press conference in Washington after a meeting with IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn earlier on Sunday, on the sidelines of the IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings.
He said the negotiations are going very well, adding that he had met with finance ministers of the United States, Brazil and Russia, and is going to meet the Chinese finance minister later on Sunday.
Technical discussions with the IMF are also underway, he said.
Talks with European partners on a 30-billion-euro bailout are going on simultaneously, he added.
Papaconstaninou said Greece has started a three-year restructuring program to regain the confidence of European partners, the international community and the market.
Every item on the reform agenda has been started. The Greek parliament has passed a bill to overhaul the tax system to increase government revenue. Tough measures have been taken to reduce the wage bill of the public sector by 10 percent in 2010, the minister said.
Some of the reforms have started to pay off, he said. The country's deficit has declined 14 percent in the first quarter.
"It is important to state at this point that these negotiations did not suffer scratch," he said.
Strauss-Kahn said his talks with Papaconstaninou on Sunday had been very constructive and that he is confident negotiations with Greece will be concluded in time to meet Greece's need.
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