Greece may issue new bond by end of 2019: govt official

• Greece's 10-year bond yield has dropped by about 3 percentage points since the beginning of the year and was trading at around 1.28pc on Thursday.
• The country also plans to repay early about 3 billion euros of expensive IMF loans maturing by 2021.

ATHENS: Greece's government may issue a new bond this year to benefit from record low yields in the euro zone, a government official said on Thursday.

The issue would be the fourth since the country emerged from its third international bailout in August last year.

"We are considering one more bond issue before the end of the year," the official told Reuters, without providing any details over its size or the maturity. No final decision had been made, the official added.

Greece's 10-year bond yield has dropped by about 3 percentage points since the beginning of the year and was trading at around 1.28pc on Thursday.

"Although we have met our borrowing target for this year we want to take advantage of the low yields," the official said.

Greece has already raised about 7.5 billion euros ($8.20 billion) from a five-year and a 10-year bond issue in the first quarter and a seven-year bond in July.

The country also plans to repay early about 3 billion euros of expensive IMF loans maturing by 2021.

So far, it has built a cash buffer of more than 30 billion euros from money raised from markets and unused bailout loans, which means it can service its debt without any aid up to 2022.