Greece must continue reforms, sell state assets: EU-IMF

ATHENS: Greece is "broadly" on track with tough austerity measures but "major reforms" lie ahead along with a 50-billion-euro privatisation drive, EU and IMF auditors inspecting Greek finances said Friday.

"Our overall assessment is that the program has made further progress toward its objectives," the auditors from the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank said after a quarterly review.

"However, major reforms still need to be designed and implemented to build a critical mass necessary to secure fiscal sustainability and economic recovery," the experts said in a statement released to media.

Greece last May committed itself to a far-reaching austerity plan after accepting a 110-billion-euro ($150-billion) loan from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to stave off imminent bankruptcy.

It has so far drawn 38 billion euros from that package and Friday's assessment will determine the release of the next 15-billion-euro tranche in March.

The auditors on Friday said approval of their review by their respective organisations would allow for the money to be released.

But they called for a "decisive acceleration" of structural reforms where delays have been noted, and a massive privatisation drive worth 50 billion euros, or $68 billion, including 15 billion euros in the next two years.

IMF mission chief Poul Thomsen told a media conference that a "full inventory" of available state assets was needed but that it was too early to say what should be sold first.

Amid rising public anger and a flurry of strikes and protests, the government last year managed to slash the public deficit by an unprecedented six percentage points, to around 9.4 percent of economic output.

Its objective is to bring the deficit to below three percent of output -- the level mandated under EU rules -- by 2014.

The cuts on public spending, wages and pensions, accompanied by successive tax hikes, have plunged the economy into a deep recession and it is expected to contract by three percent this year.

Unemployment shot up to 13.9 percent in November while inflation stayed above five percent in January, official data showed on Thursday.

The cutbacks have brought waves of strikes and work stoppages by civil servants, the main target of the austerity drive, in addition to other professionals including lawyers, doctors and teachers.

Another general strike is scheduled for February 23.