IMF: Greece Missed Bailout Targets

Posted July 12th, 2012 at 12:40 pm (UTC-5)
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The International Monetary Fund says Greece has missed several financial targets it pledged to adopt as it secured its second bailout earlier this year.

The IMF did say Greece kept some promises linked to the $159 billion rescue package from the IMF and its European neighbors.

Greece's new coalition government is seeking to renegotiate the terms of the latest bailout, to give itself an extra two years — to 2016 — to achieve a budget surplus. But the IMF said it is too soon to discuss revising the conditions of the bailout.

Greece said Thursday its jobless rate has surged to a new high, topping 22 percent in April — more than six percentage points higher than a year ago.

One unemployed textile worker, Sofia Nesterouli, said that with the high jobless rate, Greeks have had to make distinct spending choices.

“Since they started cutting workers' salaries, people won't be concerned with buying clothes and shoes. They'll look out for paying their obligations and how to maintain themselves, how they'll eat, for example. And that's why the textile and shoe sector has great unemployment.”