WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund Friday approved a loan of 26 billion euros ($36.8 billion) for the Portugal help countries recover from a debilitating sovereign debt crisis, saying: it would be immediately disbursing EUR 6.1 billion to alleviate the debt of the euro-zone Member investor concerns.
In a statement, the IMF said that the total funding to the Portugal in 2011 will approximately 12.6 billion euro from the IMF and another 25.2 billion euros from the European Union. The funding is part of a joint package of rescue euro ($110 billion) IMF/EU 78 billion.
"Financial is designed to allow Portugal some respite borrowing markets while it illustrates the implementation of the policy measures necessary to get the economy on the rails", the IMF said in a statement.
The financial envelope was calibrated to allow the Portugal to stay out of the bond market in the medium and long term for a little over two years, said the head of Mission of the IMF Poul Thomsen.
Under the agreement, Lisbon will have to perform steep budget spending, increasing taxes, reforming its work and justice systems and to embark on an ambitious program of privatization.
"The Portuguese authorities have put forward a programme which is economically well balanced and the creation of jobs and growth in its centre,", said the IMF Acting Managing Director John Lipsky.
"It addresses the fundamental problem in the Portugal - low growth - with a mixture of policy based on restoring competitiveness through structural reforms, ensuring a balanced fiscal consolidation path and stabilize the financial sector", he added.
The agreement follows a package of 110 billion euros for the Greece last May and a program of 85 - billion - euros for the Ireland in November.
Arrangement of the Portugal is the first time a country has asked not private investors to sell bonds on a voluntary basis in their portfolios.
The leader of opposition of the social democratic Portugal, Pedro Passos Coelho, warned Thursday that the country has no margin for breach of the meeting the austerity of the program.
The conditions included in the rescue plan are expected to contribute to a contraction of the Portuguese economy of 2 percent both this year and next.
"This will not be an easy program." It will be a difficult period of adjustment, "said Thomsen.
The program focuses on a lack of competitiveness of enterprises in the Portugal, he said. It sets a goal of a deficit of 3% of GDP in 2013.
"Even during the good years, before the crisis, Portugal hardly grew," noted Thomsen.
The Portugal economy should start to expand again in two years, he said, adding that many of the initiatives are strongly weighted the first phases of the reforms.
Poulsen said he believes a consensus policy behind reforms bode well for the success of the measures to reshape the Portuguese economy.
"It is quite striking how most issues key, not least in terms of structural reform, have broad political support, which, for me, is one of the encouraging things," he said.
(Other reports by Lesley Wroughton;) (Editing by Diane Craft, Gary butts)
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