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Athens is keen to quickly conclude a third bailout review with
its international creditors, helping smooth its return to market
financing, as its rescue program ends next August.
Greece returned to bond markets for the first time in three
years in July. It sold 3 billion euros of new five-year bonds
alongside a tender to buy back outstanding 5-year paper issued
in 2014.
"Within the next six to seven months there will be efforts to
tap bond markets," the ministry official told reporters,
declining to be named.
"It will involve (raising) new money and a bit of debt
management. This why we want to conclude the third bailout
review fast, by January."
Without specifying a figure, the official said the country is
this year set to exceed a targeted 1.75-percent-of-GDP primary
budget surplus, which excludes debt servicing costs.
Last week Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said the government was
determined to beat its fiscal targets and speed up the
conclusion of the third review, promising a "dividend" to the
vulnerable.
The official said the planned handout would not be distributed
to low-income pensioners, as last year when Tsipras unexpectedly
announced a one-off Christmas bonus to retirees, angering the
country's lenders.
"The (fiscal outperformance) will not go to pensioners, it will
go toward other social spending, to pay down state arrears and
growth projects."
(Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas, writing by George
Georgiopoulos; editing by John Stonestreet)
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