Central banker urges Europe to specify debt relief measures for Greece

ATHENS (Reuters) - Central bank governor Yannis Stournaras said on Thursday Greece's European partners must urgently outline debt relief measures to help boost economic recovery and facilitate its return to financial markets in 2018. European partners promised earlier this year to specify debt relief measures to make Greece's public debt, the highest in the euro zone, sustainable. But the "envisaged long-term public debt management measures have not been specified yet", Stournaras told an EU-Arab summit in Athens. "Urgent action is warranted on the specification and quantification of the foreseen debt relief measures," he said in a speech. "This will enhance the credibility and acceptance of the policies pursued, thereby helping to further consolidate confidence, strengthen economic recovery, lower the tax burden and facilitate the return to financial markets after the end of the programme." Stournaras reiterated that Greece's economy is expected to grow by 2.5 percent next year and by 3 percent in 2018, as long as Athens speeds up reforms and privatisations agreed with its official lenders under its third international bailout. "These projections assume that the programme implementation will remain on track, the relevant loan tranches will be disbursed on time, and that the monetary policy of the ECB will continue to be accommodative," he said. Greece must also tackle the issue of non-performing loans to attract investment, he added. Non-performing exposures (NPE) stood at 108.7 billion euros at the end of the first half of 2016, giving Greece the second-highest NPE ratio in Europe. (Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas and Angeliki Koutantou; Writing by Renee Maltezou; Editing by Andrew Roche)