Greece's new hard-left government yesterday scrapped key privatisation tenders and pressed home its demand for debt relief, causing sharp falls on the Athens stock market as investors fretted over the risk of a default.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said his "national salvation" government would not sell a majority stake in the main ports of Piraeus and Thessaloniki, and would also halt the privatisation of the top electricity and petroleum companies.
The news sent Greek stocks tumbling, with the main index losing over 9.0 per cent and banks falling by a quarter.
Yields on Greek 10-year bonds also rose above the symbolic barrier of 10 per cent.
Tsipras, comfortably elected on Sunday on a pledge of ending painful austerity in a country worn down by six years of recession, said he wanted a "fair" renegotiation with Brussels of the country's €240 billion euro (HK$2.2 trillion) bailout.
His finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, insisted there would be no "showdown" between Greece and the European Union, while calling the austerity cuts a "toxic mistake" that ultimately benefited no one in Europe.
