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decline of Greek exports up to that point, as
Greek enterprises tried to respond to the shrink-
age of the internal market, which was, in turn, the
result of the reversal of the easy credit that char-
acterized the pre-crisis period (actually, the first
inklings of a response from Greek exports were
recorded in the last months of 2010).
Returning to the current period, we can see that,
according to ELSTAT data, in the first nine
months of 2013 Greek exports (including petrole-
um products) rose to 20.78 billion euros, from
19.794 billion euros and 17.996 billion euros in
the respective periods of the years 2012 and
H
owever, we believe that the main con-
clusions will not be easily refuted by the
announcement, at the beginning of the
next year, of the overall performance for 2013,
since it is estimated that the “heavy trends” of the
past three-years show remarkable resilience.
In any case, the time period which we intent to
examine, comes after an excellent, in terms of
exports, year 2012, during which Greece hit an
historic extroversion record, with exports of
26.612 billion euros or 13.85% of GDP. This had
been preceded by a satisfactory year 2011, which
largely signalled a reversal to the continuous
The review of Greek exports for the year 2013 may
involve a, however small, degree of uncertainty, to
the extent that our analysis will be
de facto
based on
data concerning the first nine-months and, for a more
detailed approach, the first semester, of this year.
By Leonidas Tsaoulas
The Battle for
Extroversion
