Greece to receive full EU-IMF loan paymen

Greece will receive all of a long-awaited 34.3-billion-euro ($45.2 billion) loan tranche from the EU and the IMF by Wednesday, a Greek official said on Tuesday, hours after an initial payment was carried out. "The full amount should arrive by Wednesday," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "A payment of seven billion euros ($9.2 billion) was made on Monday. There will be another 11.3 billion euros for debt buyback plus 16 billion euros to recapitalise Greek banks," he added. Following a decision by European leaders last week, another 14.8 billion euros from Greece's ongoing EU-IMF assistance package is to be disbursed in the first quarter of next year. Greece had been denied bailout funds since June owing to reform delays and a protracted electoral campaign that created uncertainty about the future of its promised fiscal overhaul. The recession-hit country urgently needs the money to settle a 31.9-billion-euro debt buyback carried out last week. It must also recapitalise Greek banks that took a massive hit to their books in the spring from a write-down, a previous attempt to bring Greece's huge sovereign debt under control.