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Borg: time to 'pressure' Italy and Greece

AFP/The Local
AFP/The Local - [email protected]
Borg: time to 'pressure' Italy and Greece

Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg called on Wednesday for more pressure on debt-ridden Greece and Italy to straighten out their floundering public finances.

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"There has to be sizeable international pressure on Greece and Italy" to push through reforms to get their economies in order, he told Swedish news agency TT.

He also expressed concern about doubts surrounding the solidity of French and German banks.

He said that heavy amounts of sovereign debt carried by Europe's banks were creating uncertainty and the only way to resolve the issue was for Greece and Italy to restore confidence in their economies.

Sweden has previously expressed concerns that mounting doubts about economies such as those of Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain will affect its small export-reliant economy.

After recovering from the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, Sweden has seen its economy grow to become one of the most robust in Europe.

But the Swedish central bank said earlier on Wednesday that it saw the Swedish economy weakening as a result of the world's deepening financial crisis, and held its key interest rate at 2.0 percent.

While forecasting Swedish economic growth of 4.4 percent for this year, the bank revised downwards its growth forecast for 2012 from 2.2 percent to 1.7

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