The minister, who was being heard in a session of the committee on board, finance and public administration, said the state had accumulated “a very significant amount of liquidity reserves” that made it possible to face any future financing difficulties with relatively little concern.
For this reason, and given that the country enjoys what she described as a “situation of normalisation of access to the market”, Portugal “is in a position to ... start the necessary procedures for early repayment to the IMF”.
According to the timetable of debt amortisations published by the state debt management agency, the IGCP, Portugal was to start repaying its IMF loan this year, with €500 million of the total of €26.91 billion to be repaid.
The yields on Portuguese government bonds traded on the market have been at or near record lows in recent weeks, enabling the country to reduce the cost of servicing its debt by rolling it over.