(Bloomberg) -- Greece plans to sell as much as €8 billion euros ($8.4 billion) of new bonds in 2025, the head of the country’s Public Debt Management Agency said, covering roughly three-fourths of its annual financing needs.
The borrowing will go toward meeting the state’s €11 billion of total financing next year, while the rest will come from European funds such as the NGEU and other sources, the head of PDMA Dimitrios Tsakonas said. Greece sold €9.5 billion euros of bonds in 2024.
The government is moving forward to further reduce its debt-to-output ratio as it recovers from the pandemic, eyeing a reduction of about 20 percentage points over the next four years. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis revealed Monday his plan to repay ahead of schedule more of the bailout loans in 2025, with an early payment of long-term obligations maturing between 2033 to 2042.
Greece sees its economy growing by 2.3% in 2025 from a projected 2.2% for this year, outperforming many euro-area peers. The new budget published Wednesday forecasts public debt will drop to 147.5% of GDP in 2025 from 154% this year.
The primary surplus — a measure of revenue minus spending, excluding interest payments — will fall to 2.4% of gross domestic output, just under this year’s figure of 2.5%, the forecasts show. The overall budget deficit is expected to drop to 0.6% from 0.7% in 2024.
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