By T. Tsiros
The finance ministry’s leadership is reassessing – downwards – all of the primary economic forecasts and targets for the ongoing year, in light of a “second wave” of the coronavirus pandemic that has caused new confirmed infections to mushroom to more than 2,000 on almost a daily basis.
The primary deficit of the general government is forecast to exceed 7 percent of GDP.
Tax revenues, in light of a postponement of payments to the tax bureau by affected businesses, are also forecast to dip under 44 billion euros.
In terms of the public debt, the forecast is for it to stand at a level of above 204 to 205 percent GDP, even if there is no new borrowing until the end of the year.
Finally, the recession for the year is also expected to be worse than the previous forecast of an 8.2-percent collapse in GDP. The goal is for an end-of-the-year holiday spending spree by consumers to keep the recession in the high single-digit range, and to be a double-digit reduction.
