Greece to return to markets for medium-term loans by June

Greece, fighting to emerge from bailouts which began in 2010, will try to return to borrowing normally on the medium-term debt mark by June, Greek press reports said on Wednesday citing the finance minister. This is some months earlier than had been expected. "We are going to try to issue small bonds" with a life of three or five years "in the first half of 2014",  the Ana news agency reported, citing Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras. He made his remarks to the press late on Tuesday outside a meeting of the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers in Athens. Since being rescued by the International Monetary Fund and European Union in 2010, Greece has been able to issue only short-term bonds. The country has been rescued with two loans totalling 240 billion euros ($331 billion) to finance its repayment obligations and also its annual running costs. On Tuesday, the Eurogroup cleared the way for the release of a slice of loans totalling 8.3 billion euros for Greece, of which 6.3 billion euros would be made available by the end of April. This was after the Greek parliament had adopted on Sunday a controversial framework law to deregulate markets and recapitalise banks. Those measures had been required by the IMF, EU and European Central Bank. Last week, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said that Greece would return to borrow on financial markets in the near future and not in the second half of the year as his government had said at the end of December.