Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 16-04-19

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Negotiation at technical level in the final stage, estimates gov't spokeswoman Gerovassili

[02] Greece and institutions can conclude first review 'in a very short time', Dombrovskis says

[03] Container traffic in Piraeus port up 9.6 pct in Q1

[01] Negotiation at technical level in the final stage, estimates gov't spokeswoman Gerovassili

Gerovassili said that the European institutions returned to Athens on Tuesday and IMF's representative will arrive in Athens on Wednesday to participate in the deliberations.

She said that the messages from abroad say that the review must be completed and stability to prevail and underlined that at this moment the government is not interested in the political cost but in the country and the Greek people's benefit.

Asked if the possibility of additional measures is a red line for the government, Gerovassili said that the existing agreement foresees that if the targets are not met then additional measures will be imposed. "However, to discuss today for measures in case 2018 primary surplus target is not met, makes no sense and it is not good for the economy and destabilises the economic climate" said Gerovassili.

[02] Greece and institutions can conclude first review 'in a very short time', Dombrovskis says

"During the last weeks we have been making substantial progress with the Greek authorities. It is the Commission's assessment that we can be close to a concluding of the first review," Dombrovskis said in his reply, noting that this could be done "in a very short time" if all the sides were ready to a "final push".

According to Dombrovskis, the Commission was not putting any deadline on when the first review needs to be completed, noting that this was originally meant to happen last autumn.

"Clearly we are running delays but what matters is implementation of the commitments in the Memorandum of Understanding and that is the Commission's benchmark for completing and reaching staff level agreement," he said.

The Commissioner noted that good progress had been made in Washington and there was now an agreement in principle on using the Commission's figures as a baseline scenario, which the missions in Athens needed to explore further. He said they would also look at possible contingency measures "in case the more pessimistic IMF scenario were to materialise," adding that this was just a broad outline of the ideas that needs to be developed.

[03] Container traffic in Piraeus port up 9.6 pct in Q1

In March, the terminal operated 275.1 thousand container boxes, up 3.2 pct from March last year, a trend reflecting the fact that several shipping companies were opting the port of Piraeus as their logistics hub for the transport of their containers to east and central Europe.

Company officials, however, said that the railway track in Idomeni remained closed for around 31 days despite promises made by authorities that the track will be operational again. This has led the company to seek alternative transport routes, via Bulgaria and Romania, at a significant cost for the company, of around 6,000 euros per train.

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