The country's public debt fell to €405.5 billion in the first quarter of the year, up from €406.5 billion at the end of last year. At the same time, according to the General Accounting Office, the Greek government's cash reserves fell to €19.4 billion euros from €21.2 billion euros, respectively.

At the general government level, public debt fell at the end of the first quarter of this year to €356 billion, from €356.6 billion at the end of 2023.

It should be noted that these reserves include the so-called "hard cushion" (cash buffer) of €15.7 billion.

Of the total debt, only 26% is tradable on the secondary market, while the remaining 74% relates to intergovernmental loans under the memoranda.

In particular, the loans of the Support Mechanism amount to €227 billion, while another €7.2 billion are special and intergovernmental loans.

The amount of existing guarantees granted by the Greek government remained unchanged at the end of the first quarter at €26.8 billion.

As shown in the profile of public debt, €69.7 billion (17.2%) relates to bonds and bills with a maturity of up to 1 year. € 48.8 billion (12%) are bonds with a maturity of up to 5 years and 70.8% of the bonds, i.e. € 287 billion, are long-term bonds.

On this basis, the Greek government is going to "go to the markets" next Wednesday, May 22, in the framework of the scheduled auctions, by re-issuing a bond, which will probably be announced tomorrow. 

Next week (May 29), the Public Debt Management Agency will proceed with the scheduled auction of 26-week (six-month) Treasury bills.

Thereafter, the reassessment of the credit rating by the international rating agency Fitch is expected with interest at the end of the month (31/05).

It is recalled that this rating agency has classified the country's credit rating in the BBB category, considering that the prospects of the Greek economy are "stable.".