(instead of €22.45 billion, based on provisional
data), including estimates on the growth of oil
product exports. This attaches greater weight to
the export performance of 2011, obviously
increasing the importance of exports for 2012,
which, although based on provisional data, are
clearly within the initial targets (a 4%-6%
increase), amidst an admittedly adverse domestic
and international environment, and are estimated
at above €24 billion (including oil products).
Nonetheless, the total value of exports-dispatches,
excluding oil products, during the period from
January to November 2012 stood at €15,653.7 mil-
lion, as compared to €14,677.0 million in the
same period of the year 2011, increased by 6.7%.
In the same time period, the total value of
imports-arrivals, excluding oil products, fell to
€27,714.8 million from €29,789.9 million last year,
i.e. were reduced by 7%, while the corresponding
trade deficit was reduced by 20.2%.
In the period under review, 60.85% of Greek
exports were directed to the EU, with the other
countries absorbing 39.15%. It is very interesting
to note that in the three-years from 2010 to 2012
there has been an obvious shift in favour of third
countries, since the EU’s share has proportion-
ately decreased by almost 6 percentage points,
along with an impressive increase in the share of
Greek exports to non-EU markets from 11.9% in
2011/10 to 22.0% in 2012/11!
More specifically (based on data for the first nine
months of 2012) the top-ten export destinations are:
Italy, Germany, Bulgaria, Cyprus, UK, Turkey, USA,
France, Romania, Russia, with the US and Russian
markets moving up in this year’s rankings.
On the same chronological basis, we can see
that, as far as the composition of exports by major
product categories is concerned, excluding oil
products, the increase comes largely from the
growth of raw material exports by 58% and agri-
cultural product exports by 8.4%.
Manufacturing product exports remained stag-
nant, while the exports of low-value “Commodities
and transactions not classified by category”
(including confidential items) were reduced by
14.5% year-on-year.
The list of Greece’s top-100 export products for
the first nine-months of 2012 included some
spectacular year-on-year changes, as cotton
exports rose to the 7th place, telephone handsets
to the 8th, electricity to the 10th and alumina to
the 13th place, while, overall, many products from
the fruit-vegetables and construction materials
sectors also did well.
On the sub-sector level, food-beverages prevail
(with an export value of €2.27 billion, or 18.25%
of the total), followed by construction materials
(€1.91 billion, or 15.36%), machinery-vehicles-
equipment (€913 million, or 7.33%) and pharma-
ceuticals-cosmetics (€763 million, or 6.13%). The
5th place is shared by minerals-raw materials and
clothing-textiles, each with export values of €384
million and shares of 3.09%. Although the analy-
sis of data for the entire year under review will,
obviously, provide a much more complete picture,
it is very unlikely that the main conclusions will
vary too much.
Nonetheless, it is clear that Greece is no more
competing with the low-cost production of third
Trade with Greece
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