Greece confident on recovery without restructuring debts

Greece will get through its economic crisis without having to restructure its debts, the country's finance minister George Papaconstantinou said today.

He warned that the eurozone would be threatened if the markets panicked over Greek financial struggles.

"We must not allow the currency union to be destroyed by the overreaction of the markets," he said.

Papaconstantinou said Greece still had a "credibility problem", but that he had not doubt it would not be forced into a debt restructuring.

A team from the EU, IMF and European Central Bank said last week that Greece seemed on track with reforms to rescue the debt-laden nation from bankruptcy in return for a three-year, 110 billion rescue package.

"I see light at the end of the tunnel," said Papaconstantinou. "We hope to end the year better than we had expected thus far, to come out of the recession faster and to return to growth from the middle of 2011."

However, he added: "Spain and Portugal are in a much better position than us."

Under the terms of the aid package, Greece has promised to cut its budget gap to 8.1% of GDP this year and bring it under the EU's 3% limit by 2014.