-Thomas Wieser, EWG chairman
The European Central Bank will continue supplying Greek commercial banks with more cash as long as they stay solvent and have enough collateral, Executive Board Member Benoit Coeure said. Thus, the Frankfurt-based central bank raised the Emergency Liquidity Assistance loans by around 1.5 billion euros to 75.5 billion euros. That was higher than 800 million euros provided in April, and 600 million euros in March. Yet, back in February the ECB poured cash into the emergency ELA poll twice, worth more than 8 billion euros. Meanwhile, it is expected that Greece's cash reserves could allow the government to meet its payment obligations until June, alleviating concerns of an imminent default. Greek Deputy Finance Minister Dimitris Mardas said Athens aimed to have a 2.5 billion euro cash buffer by forcing state entities to lend to the state in order to cover payments until the end of May. However, the head of the Eurogroup Working Group said the Greek government would not present an updated list of economic reforms needed to unlock further EU funds when finance ministers meet in Latvia on Friday.
Meanwhile, retail sales in the Euro zone's third biggest economy, Italy, fell in February. Italy's retail turnover declined 0.2% on a monthly basis, following the 0.2% growth in January. Measured on an annual basis, sales in Italian stores rose 0.1%, compared to the revised 1.2% expansion in retail business in January.
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