GREECE is set to receive US$4.6 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after the institution’s board Friday signed off on the latest review of Greece’s rescue package.

    The disbursement comes after the IMF and Greece’s European lenders finished analyzing Greece’s progress under its 173 billion euro (US$236 billion) bailout in March, ending six months of protracted negotiations. Greece last got an IMF aid disbursement in July 2013, of US$2.3 billion.

    The IMF has so far lent Greece about US$15.8 billion under a four-year program, meant to help Athens recover from a sovereign debt crisis, rebuild its economy and return to markets.

    Given the delay with the fifth review, Greece should get the equivalent of three more disbursements this year, spread out over any remaining reviews, the IMF said.

    The Washington-based global lender praised Greece’s progress in cutting its debt and bringing its primary budget into surplus ahead of schedule.

    “Greece has gone from having the weakest to the strongest cyclically adjusted primary fiscal balance in the euro area in just four years,” Naoyuki Shinohara, deputy managing director at the IMF, said in a statement. The primary balance excludes interest payments and other one-off items.

    “[But] public debt is projected to remain high well into the next decade, despite a targeted high primary surplus,” Shinohara said.

    Greece’s budget surplus, announced in April, is a sign of the progress the eurozone country has made to fix its finances after four years of tough bailout-imposed austerity that wiped out almost a quarter of its GDP and sent unemployment to record highs of nearly 28 percent.

    (SD-Agencies)