Euro slips amid concern over Greece

File photo: Lee Jae-Won

File photo: Lee Jae-Won

Published May 19, 2015

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Tokyo - The euro extended its losses on Tuesday after tumbling in US trade on worries about the long-running talks between cash-strapped Greece and its creditors on reforming its bailout terms.

In Tokyo, the single currency slipped to $1.1297 from $1.1315 in New York, where is sank 1.1 percent from a three-month high. It also dipped to 135.54 yen from 135.75 yen.

Greece on Monday entered the final stretch of tortuous talks with the European Union and International Monetary Fund, with Athens calling for a breakthrough by the end of the month.

The government and creditors have been stuck in a deadlock for four months over the reforms required to release a final 7.2 billion euros in bailout funds that are needed to service is debts.

There are fears that if it defaults on those loans Greece could tumble out of the eurozone.

However, European economic affairs chief Pierre Moscovici said Greece's anti-austerity leadership seemed more interested in ditching promised reforms than in making proposals of its own.

“Against this unsettled political backdrop, it is difficult to see the euro's recovery... continuing,” Australia & New Zealand Banking Group analyst Brian Martin wrote in a report.

“The euro's recovery would seem to have gone far enough for now.”

The dollar was flat at 119.98 yen from 119.97 yen in New York, but up from 119.63 yen in Tokyo earlier on Monday, as traders await Japan's first-quarter economic figures due on Wednesday as well as minutes from the Federal Reserve's most recent policy meeting.

* Bloomberg News contributed to this story

AFP

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