Cash to last up to May at the latest

Without receiving another bailout installment, Greece can only finance its obligations for the first four or five months of the year, according to a Eurobank study regarding the country’s needs up until the end of the program next year and the course of the Greek debt.

The bank’s economists argue that unless some decisions are reached to lighten Greece’s national debt in the medium term, the country will require ever greater loans to meet its obligations from 2023 onward.

According to the study, the country’s net funding needs are expected to rise to 16.9 billion euros in 2017 and 9.6 billion in the January-August 2018 period. Therefore, Greece’s financing needs are estimated at 26.8 billion euros until the end of the bailout program.

“If there are no significant delays in the scheduled disbursements of loans from the official sector, those needs are expected to be sufficiently covered through domestic resources (primary budget surplus and revenues from the state property utilization program), as well as the available funding from the existing adjustment program,” the bank’s report notes.

July is projected to be the most demanding month for 2017 as regards the repayment of the national debt, with the funding required amounting to about 7.4 billion euros (of which 800 million will account for interest payment). Average expenditure on national debt obligations for the rest of the year (except July) is expected to come to just over 750 million euros per month, Eurobank says.

“All this denotes that the Greek state’s cash availability will suffice for the coverage of debt obligations for the first four to five months of the year, even in the absence of new external funding for the country in the context of the current program,” write the Eurobank economists. “However, the completion of the second review without any further delays is of vital significance to avoid a fresh deterioration in the domestic economic climate and to maintain expectations for the possible inclusion of Greece in the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing program,” the report warns.