Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou cancelled his trip to the U.S. Saturday to chair a more pressing cabinet meeting Sunday on how the country can secure another bailout loan before the government runs out of cash next month.

Papandreou was supposed to attend the United Nations General Assembly and meet with International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials after his trip to London on Friday, but he headed home instead.

Sunday's cabinet meeting agenda focused on new austerity measures Greece has to take to convince the European Union (EU), the European Central Bank (ECB) and IMF to release the $11 billion tranche of the $146 billion bailout loan obtained last year to cover the government's operating budget by October.

The bailout loan was conditional on spending cuts targets. The lenders decided not to release the tranche yet pending Athens' action to their demand for cuts in the number of state workers and their salaries and pensions. Some 20,000 state workers are to be axed as a cost-cutting measure.

Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos emerged from Sunday's cabinet talks without giving details to reporters. "We must fully meet 2011 and 2012 fiscal targets," BBC quoted him as telling reporters.
Venizelos also said Greece has to stop generating debt and start producing surpluses next year. He did not say how these would be achieved.

On Monday, Venizelos will have a teleconference with lenders to convince them how Greece will plug this year's budget shortfall.
Last week, Athens admitted it fell short of fiscal targets due to a deeper-than-expected recession and decided to impose new real estate tax to raise $2.6 billion annually.