Gov't moving to get better budget figures

ATHENS (AP):

Greece will achieve better-than-expected budget figures in 2014, but unemployment would only decline slowly over the coming four years, the country's finance ministry stated yesterday.

The ministry said it expects to achieve a primary budget surplus - what's left after debt and interest payments - of 2.3 per cent of the country's annual economic output, up from its previous prediction of 1.5 per cent. By 2018, it expects to post a primary surplus of 5.3 per cent in 2018.

Achieving a primary surplus has been one of the main purposes of the austerity medicine the country has taken over the past few years.

After being locked out of international bond markets in 2010, Greece has relied on billions of euros of bailout funds from its partners in the Eurozone and the International Monetary Fund. In return, it has had to impose tough spending cuts and tax rises alongside a wide-ranging economic-reform programme in order to get its public finances into shape and get Greece in a position to stand on its own again.