On Friday, Greece’s state statistics agency, ELSTAT, drastically revised downwards the economy’s third-quarter contraction to 0.9 percent, from 0.5 percent previously.
“These differences are on account of using new data, not available at the time of the flash estimate,” the Elstat agency said, citing a mixture of September balance of payments data, service turnover and jobless figures as factors for the downturn.
In an annual comparison, Greek output had fallen by 1.1 percent from the third quarter of 2014, Elstat said. The flash estimate on November 13 had pointed to a 0.4-percent drop from last year.
The data is consistent with European Commission forecasts that Greece will fall back into recession in 2015 after a brief respite last year. The Commission is banking on a 1.4-percent contraction in 2015 and a further drop of 1.3 percent in 2016.
Greece’s own 2016 budget, to be approved by parliament in early December, foresees “near zero” growth in 2015 and a 0.7-percent economic downturn next year.
German Deutsche Welle notes:
“Although Greece had a record tourism year, the gains were lost to economic uncertainty as the leftist government of Alexis Tsipras clashed with international creditors in June and imposed capital controls.”
The German state broadcaster claims also
“that Greece has received “massive financial assistance from the EU. ”
Although the Eurogroup and the European Stability Mechanism approved the 2 billion euro disbursement beginning of the week, no cent has arrived yet.
Yes. Blame the Tsipras government, the Referendum and the elections and hug with care and protection the mountain of taxes, the ‘red tapes’ that kill entrepreneurship and the investors-unfriendly environment. You can also praise the Greek employers that owe salaries to their employees or the wages level that is hardly at 600-700 euro per month. You can also sing “hallelujah” to the tax evasion in tourist regions.
Search for: The Cause and the Effect
PS I remember the European Central Bank had beginning of November “seen” 4.8% increase of the real available income of the Greek households in the first Quarter of 2015. 🙂
