PM Samaras optimistic on receiving the next tranche of the loan soon

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras appeared optimistic on Monday evening that Greece will be receiving the next tranche of the loan soon. Addressing a conference entitled "Greece: Investment Forum - Moving Forward", hosted by the International Herald Tribune and the Athens daily "Kathimerini", Samaras stressed that the loan's tranche is essential for Greece to recapitalise its banks, to strengthen the liquidity of the economy and to enable the state to cover its debts to the private sector.

The next tranche is crucial because it will certify that Greece can stand upright and that the danger of an exit from the euro is moving away, the prime minister said, adding that, provided the "drachma phobia" disappears and liquidity is strengthened, the climate in the economy will change in its entirety. Samaras also said that despite the measures, that will be the last, the Greek economy can take the turn in the next year and enter the beginning of recovery.

The prime minister said it is positive that for the first time there is wider consensus and stressed that difficulties exist, however we have made progress and the worse is over. "For the first time in Greece there is a strong popular consensus that supports the big, necessary structural changes. For the first time the money that will go into the Greek economy will be more than additional austerity. For the first time our partners, all the more, more and more of them, all the more categorically bet on Greece's success. They do not take its failure for granted, as was the case until today," Samaras noted. He also said that he is facing the crisis in Greece as a challenge for success, "breaking the cliches and fatalism".

Samaras referred to the five challenges to which the country is being called on to face:
"-First challenge: All of us must realise the unused wealth and the unexploited comparative advantages that Greece has.
-Second challenge: We must regain Greece's reliability internationally again.
-Third challenge: We must strengthen competitiveness.
-Fourth challenge: We must place absolute priority on maintaining our social cohesion.
-Fifth challenge: Every move from now onwards must fuel hope and neutralise whatever detonates extremism and populism."
"Greece's growth rennaissance will become an example internationally with competitiveness and social cohesion," the prime minister concluded.

SOURCE: ATHENS NEWS AGENCY