IMF releases $3.3bn loan to Greece

THE International Monetary Fund on Friday agreed to release 2.5 billion euros ($3.35 billion) to Greece, as the country battles high borrowing costs and a rumbling debt crisis.
The disbursement, worth roughly $US3.3 billion ($3.34 billion), brings total IMF emergency loans to Greece to 10.58 billion euros ($14.17 billion).

After reviewing Greece's moves to slash its deficit, including tough and unpopular budget cuts, the IMF said reforms were working.

"The Greek authorities are to be commended for their determined implementation of difficult and ambitious macroeconomic policies and structural reforms,'' senior IMF official Murilo Portugal said.

"Inflation is falling and competitiveness improving,'' and that the ``overall fiscal adjustment to date has been impressive,'' he said.

But it has not been without pain.

The country has been rocked by strikes and demonstrations that have paralysed transport networks and occasionally turned violent.

Greece is caught in a debt crisis and a snowballing recession that followed a scare on the accuracy of government statistics and a resulting spike in its borrowing costs earlier this year.
The loan is part of a European Union and the International Monetary Fund of 110 billion euros ($147.33 billion) loan approved in May that rescued the nation from bankruptcy.

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