Trade with Greece
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gramme makes it easier to reach decisions on the
medium- and long-term measures that will ensure
the sustainability of Greece’s public debt and the
inclusion of Greek government bonds in the
quantitative easing programme of the European
Central Bank (ECB).
The Bank of Greece predicts that the resumption
of the Greek economy’s positive growth, which
began in the second half of 2016, will be sus-
tained and accelerated in the years 2017, 2018,
and 2019. More specifically, economic growth is
anticipated at 2.5% in 2017, rising to 3% in 2018
and 2019, on the back of increased investment,
consumption, and exports.
Substantial progress
When the course of the economy is examined on
a longer time-scale, it is obvious that Greece has
made substantial progress since the outset of the
crisis, as far as the correction of its fiscal and
external imbalances, which led to the crisis, is
concerned. More specifically, Greece:
• managed a remarkable fiscal adjustment, as
the improvement of the structural primary fiscal
balance by 17 percentage points of potential
output during 2009-2015 was double than the
adjustment achieved by other member states
that implemented EU-IMF programmes;
• fully recovered the loss of its international
labour cost competitiveness, which had been
recorded from 2000 to 2009;
• eliminated its balance of payments deficit, with
an overall improvement of more than 15 per-
centage points of GDP in the period 2008-
2015;
• completed the recapitalisation and restructur-
ing of its banking system, ensuring that it could
successfully respond to both the crisis and the
flight of deposits;
• implemented major structural reforms in the
labour and product markets, as well as in pub-
lic administration.
All these changes are expected to increase the
