‘Insolvent’ Portugal Needs Loans Soon, Buiter Says
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Portugal is “insolvent” and will probably need soon to join the emergency-loan program from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund that’s available to Greece and Ireland, according to Willem Buiter, Citigroup Inc.’s chief economist.
“The market’s attention is likely to turn to Portugal’s sovereign, which at current levels of interest rates and growth rates is less dramatically but quietly insolvent,” Buiter wrote in a report dated yesterday. “We consider it likely that it will need to access the European Financial Stability Facility soon.”