German newspaper Handelsblatt has reported healthy progress in the Greek economy as it continues to bounce back from its debt.

The German publication has highlighted the developments made by Greece to reduce its public debt in the past few years, with their report coming off the back of the Greek government preparing to make an additional debt repayment of €8 billion in December.

The announcement published by To Vima, given by Minister of National Economy and Finance Kostis Hatzidakis, further illustrates the success Greece has had of late in this area, with the nation having reduced its debt-to-GDP ratio by 45.1 percentage points during the period of 2020-2023.

According to Eurostat data, the public debt as a percentage of GDP dropped from 209 per cent in 2020 to 163.9 per cent by the end of 2023.

Minister Hatzidakis revealed the plans to make an €8 billion repayment in December to the country’s creditors for loans initially acquired at the beginning of the debt crisis in May 2010.

These payments are coming years earlier than their originally scheduled timeframe of 2026-2028, and the German media outlet credited the development as a strong effort by the Finance Minister to further reduce Greece’s public debt as quickly as possible.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts that Greece’s public debt, which includes deferred interest from institutional bailout loans, will decrease from 168.9 per cent of GDP in 2023 to 159 per cent this year while easing to 139.4 per cent by 2029—a decrease of nearly 30 percentage points.

Analysts from the credit rating agency Scope are even more optimistic, projecting the debt-to-GDP ratio to fall to 132.8 per cent by 2029. Based on Scope’s forecast, Greece could hand over the “red light” of the EU’s highest public debt percentage to Italy by 2028.