In contrast, Brazil registered a 4% primary surplus in 2008, beating its target of around 2.4%.
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For, for Italy, there is an alternative, for they are running a primary surplus.
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So, when do we think that Greece is going to have a primary surplus?
Stephanie Flanders at the BBC says that Greece is now running a primary surplus.
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However, if a country is running a fiscal deficit but a primary surplus, the calculation changes.
And, even if it achieves a primary surplus, there is still 371bn euros of debt to service.
The primary surplus includes the debt payments of federal and local governments as well as state companies.
Italy's is very high, at 120% of GDP, but it runs a primary surplus (ie, excluding interest payments).
If a country runs a larger primary surplus, the interest rate it is forced to pay may fall.
GDP, it is vital to maintain this primary surplus, and to keep short-term interest rates below the stratosphere.
Mr da Silva, likewise, could keep reiterating a recent pledge to maintain a sufficient primary surplus to stabilise the government-debt ratio.
Who you side with on this depends, I guess, on whether and when you think Greece will actually achieve a primary surplus.
IMF, in an extraordinary fit of kindness, has accepted Argentina's commitment to a 3% primary surplus (ie, before interest payments) for 2004.
Next year it aims to achieve a primary surplus - ie a budget surplus, excluding the costs it pays to service its debts.
After all Italy also has a high savings rate, and it even enjoys a primary surplus, but it was not spared market contagion.
The Fund is expected to ask the new government to raise its current target, of a primary surplus of 3.75% of GDP, to perhaps 4.5%.
Even so, if Greece sticks to a revised programme, it should return to growth next year and enjoy a primary surplus (ie, before interest) by 2014.
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Italy is running a large primary surplus before interest costs.
And the debt ratio actually rose, to 170% of GDP in 1930 and 190% in 1933, as high real rates and declining output wiped out the benefits of a primary surplus.
This is because the country runs a primary surplus.
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It has a record of cutting spending and raising taxes if it needs to do so: in 1997, when it was trying to get into the euro, its primary surplus was 6% of GDP.
Brazil's new president, Lula da Silva, said the big spending cuts he announced this week, aimed at raising the government's primary surplus (ie, before debt-service costs), would help the country survive a coming external crisis.
You're talking about going from a primary deficit - that's the deficit, before interest payments on the debt are considered - of 4-5% of GDP in 2010 to a primary surplus of around 10% of GDP.
Athens has said that according to an agreement made with its creditors late last year, it could seek a reduction of the debt held by the official sector, such as governments and central banks, once it has achieved a primary surplus.
Assuming that the financial markets believe that the federal government could run a long-term primary surplus of 0.5% of GDP, the nation could support a federal debt held by the public of about 101% of current GDP (it is 74% of GDP now).
Others - like Wolfgang Munchau in Monday's FT - are sticking with the view that Greece is better off getting to a primary surplus before defaulting, so it wouldn't face an Argentina-style bout of further austerity as a result of losing access to international markets.
If Greece were to bring debt levels down to the 60% of GDP limit established by the EU by 2040, under very favorable conditions such as 6% interest rates on its bonds (compared with 16% currently), and 4% annual GDP growth, the country would need a primary surplus of 6% of GDP.
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Confidence will then return, particularly as Greece draws closer to a primary budget surplus.
Mr Stournaras hopes they are deep enough to achieve a primary budget surplus (before making debt repayments) of 1.4% of GDP.
To boost its primary budget surplus (excluding interest payments), the government now includes in its accounts revenue from the Central Bank and the pension system.
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