Greece has repaid its last debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – two years before the deadline. It was about loans of around 1.9 billion euros, the daily newspaper reported Kathimerini. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis expressed enthusiasm. “End of an era for the IMF as a lender to Greece!” he tweeted. A “grey chapter” that began in 2010 with the country’s severe financial crisis is closing. “An era that the Greeks shouldn’t and won’t experience again,” assured the head of government. Since 2010, the IMF had contributed almost 32 billion euros to the Greek bailout program. The current repayment is considered a further step out of the severe financial crisis that Greece went through in the past decade. The last austerity and reform program ended in August 2018. Since then, Athens has increasingly been able to stand on its own two feet and can borrow money on the capital market again. Yields on ten-year Greek government bonds are currently around 2.5 percent – at the height of the crisis in 2012, they had climbed to more than 35 percent.
IMF – Athens repays debt earlier than necessary – Economy
