A government official said that Greece is confident it has made enough progress on implementing its consolidation programme in order to achieve the release of the fourth installment of the EU/IMF loan, according to Reuters.
“The tranche is secured,” said the finance ministry official just ahead of an inspection visit.
European Union and International Monetary Fund officials arrived in Athens to evaluate whether Greece has met the targets set according to the bailout plan.
Troika said during their last visit in November that Greece was bound to have missed its general government deficit target, partly because of a revision of 2009 fiscal data.
Preliminary talks last week showed the 2010 general government deficit will be broadly in line with the 9.6% of GDP estimated by the EU and IMF in November, versus an initial target of about 8%, according to a source.
Troika officials are expected to press Greece to more to implement reforms in order to make further savings in 2012-2014 and catch up on 2010 shortfall, according to the news agency.
“We are expecting the troika officials to ask us to speed up privatisations and the major reforms”, an official said.
EU/IMF officials were satisfied with preparatory talks last week over pension reform, however more talks will be needed on the myriad of supplementary fund, officials added.
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