Greece wants to return to markets next year: minister

PARIS: Greece hopes to return to the markets next year to raise funds for its debt payments but will not need to borrow before early 2012, the finance minister told The Financial Times on Wednesday.

"The whole idea of the financial programme is to shield you, but help you return to markets as soon as possible, so we're hoping that next year we'll be doing that," Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou told the daily.

"It's unlikely this year," he added. "The amount available to us is such that we don't have to go back to the markets until the first quarter of 2012."

Greece agreed on Sunday to sweeping spending cuts to secure a 110-billion-euro (143-billion-dollar) rescue package from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund over the next three years.

There has been lingering doubts however over whether the aid programme will be enough to shore up Greece as it grapples with its crippling debt crisis.