Greece returns to markets with first bond sale since 2010

GREECE hailed a ‘triumphant’ return to the financial markets yesterday after four years as an international pariah.

Athens sold €3bn (£2.5bn) of five-year government bonds – or debt – with nearly 90pc going to long-term investors outside Greece.

The yield came in far lower than expected at 4.75pc as 550 investors bid a total of €20bn (£16.5bn) in a sign that Greece is winning back trust among international lenders.

Deputy Prime Minister Evangelos Venizelos said the auction – the first since Greece was shut out of the bond markets in March 2010 – was an ‘official, triumphant, tangible confirmation of change’.

But in a stark reminder of the pain the crisis has inflicted on an angry and recession-weary public, a car bomb was set off outside the Bank of Greece in Athens. The economy has been stuck in reverse for six years and unemployment is running at more than 27pc, with nearly 60pc of under 25s who want a job out of work.

The national debt is still almost 170pc of national income and the country has been kept afloat by two bailouts totalling €240bn (£200bn) from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

The rescue packages were granted on the condition that Greece imposed deep spending cuts and thumping tax hikes hated by the public. But Greek ministers said the successful return to the bond markets – even at a time when the country’s debt is rated ‘junk’ – showed the medicine is working. Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras, pictured, said Greece is ‘very close to an exit from the crisis’.

He added: ‘After four years of fiscal adjustments and structural reforms, the Greek economy is beginning to show the first encouraging signs of recovery.’

Venizelos added: ‘We haven’t just been spared from bankruptcy and catastrophe, we are once again becoming the Greece that we know. We will regain the quality of life that we had. ‘And all of this has happened with the sacrifices and hard work of the Greek people.’

Poul Thomsen, head of the IMF mission to Greece, said the bond auction – following the return to the financial markets by Ireland and Portugal in January last year – was ‘an important milestone’ for the

country.