Greece raises 4.063 bn euros in 3-month bonds

Greece raised 4.063 billion euros ($5 billion) in a sale of three-month treasury bills on Tuesday, paying a modestly higher rate of 4.43 percent, the public debt management agency said. The extraordinarily large sale should help the Greek government avoid a cash crunch, according to a finance ministry source, as it faces redemption of a 3.2-billion-euro bond held by the ECB which expires on August 20 and waits the next installment of its EU-IMF bailout package. "Total bids reached 4.248 billion euros and the amount finally accepted was 4.063 billion," the government debt agency said in a statement. In its last equivalent sale on July 17, Greece raised 1.625 billion euros at a slightly lower rate of 4.28 percent. Greece has been shut out of the long-term debt markets since 2010 and has regularly issued short-term debt, but previous placements had not been as high as Tuesday's. In need of cash to pay salaries and pensions, the government hopes that a solution can be found at the European level regarding the redemption of the ECB bond, a finance ministry source told AFP. The head of the eurozone finance ministers group, Jean-Claude Juncker, who is set to visit Athens on August 22, indicated recently in Brussels that a solution should be possible on the ECB-held bond. Relying for its economic survival on EU-IMF bailout loans, Greece is waiting for the next installment of nearly 31.5 billion euros as a political deadlock, the result of back-to-back elections, has thrown its reform programme off track. Auditors from the country's international creditors, who visited Greece in late July, are expected to return in September.