ATHENS –  Bolstered by rising tourism revenues and an accelerating recovery, Greece repaid early some 2.7 billion euros ($2.87 billion) in loans owed to Eurozone countries under a first international bailout in 2010.

A Finance Ministry official who didn’t want to be named told Reuters that it was part of wider plans to keep making early repayments of chunks of 326 billion euros ($346.8 billion) in three bailouts given from 2010-18.

The New Democracy government that’s also trying to lure more foreign investors wants to get Greece’s market ratings back to investment grade status to demonstrate why the country could bring big dividends.

Since the end of the bailouts that were put up to save Greece from near-collapse over decades of wild overspending and runaway patronage by successive governments, Greece has relied only on bonds markets for borrowing needs.

Greece also had repaid the International Monetary Fund (IMF) 28 billion euros ($29.77 billion) in loans two years early as well with the newest payback coming after Eurozone countries had put up 53 billion euros ($56.36 billion.)

This will bring to 8 billion euros ($8.51 billion) the repayments although it could take decades to pay off the rest although growth in 2022 is expected to be 6 percent even during the waning COVID-19 pandemic.