Greek Loan Payment Backed by IMF, Buying Time for Second Rescue

Greece won approval from the International Monetary Fund for a 3.2 billion-euro ($4.6 billion) payment under a joint loan with the European Union, buying policy makers time to craft a second rescue package and avert the first sovereign default in the euro region.

Greek commitments made to secure the loan are “delivering important results,” IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said yesterday in statement from Washington. Still, “a durable fiscal adjustment is needed, lest the deficit get entrenched at an unsustainably high level, and productivity-enhancing reforms should be accelerated, lest growth fail to recover.”