London

AS European finance ministers gathered in Brussels to decide on the next bailout payment to Greece, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has come up with a solution to reduce financing costs that may leave the bond market with indigestion.

The IMF suggested in a report that the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the euro area's crisis-fighting fund, sell 200 billion euros (S$308 billion) in long-dated bonds to lock in record-low borrowing costs. That would compete with governments from the Netherlands to Spain that recently boosted their multi-decade bond sales.