ATHENS, April 26 (Reuters) - Greece's biggest problem is its public debt and the government is anxious about dealing with the strain it is putting on the country, the finance minister said in a report in Greek to Vima newspaper, published on Sunday.
Greece, which has been hard hit by the global downturn, has the second-highest debt as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) in the euro zone after Italy, about 98 percent of its 250 billion economy.
"The public debt issue is connected to world developments at a large extent," the Greek To Vima quoted minister Yiannis Papathanassiou as saying.
"If things in markets worsen within the year - and there is such a risk - the terms of borrowing will get more adverse and this is the reason why we have already completed 80 percent of our targeted total borrowing for 2009."
The government said last week that it would likely overshoot its initial borrowing target of 43.7 billion euros this year to cope with high budget deficits.
The country has borrowed about 40 billion euros so far this year and its debt saw record spreads over benchmark German bunds in January and February, as fears over worsening fiscal problems due to the global crisis sent risk-averse investors to safer ground.
Papathanassiou said the budget deficit was also a headache for the Greek government but it could be dealt with more easily.
Greece estimates the 2009 budget deficit at 3.7 percent of GDP and plans to bring it below the EU limit of 3 percent of GDP next year. The country's deficit reached 5 percent last year, Eurostat data has showed. (Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou; editing by Karen Foster)