By G. Palaitsakis
[email protected]
Greece’s GDP shrunk by 61.6 billion euros (26 percent) since 2010, the time span when three bailout memorandums with institutional creditors were signed and implemented, figures showed this week.
Additionally, general government revenues decreased by five billion euros, with public sector wages, pensions and welfare benefits cut by 19.13 billion euros. At the same time, the public debt surged up by 52.3 percent of GDP, reaching the non-sustainable level of 179 percent of GDP.
Conversely, implementation of the memorandums eliminated primary budget deficits that were endemic to Greek state budgets, with the “milestone” being the 15.1-percent deficit, as a percentage of GDP, that was recorded in 2009. Eight years later, and under the weight of creditors’ terms, the Greek state posted a 0.7-percent budget surplus in 2016.
The figures are included in a report, entitled “The Greek Economy”, published by Greece’s now independent statistical agency, the Hellenic Statistical Authority, better known by its Greek-language acronym, EL.STAT. The intent, according to EL.STAT, is to update figures for the past several years.
Specifically, Greece’s GDP in 2009, in current rates, reached 237.534 billion euros. Seven years and three bailout memorandums later, Greece’s GDP had fallen to 175.888 billion euros at the end of 2016, on a yearly basis.
The primary reasons, as cited, are austerity-driven fiscal policies, which significantly curtailed incomes and consumption. The biggest drop in annual GDP, in fact, was recorded in 2011, when GDP shrunk by 19 billion euros (8.4 percent in current terms), from 226.031 billion euros (Dec. 2010) to 207.029 billion euros at the end of December 2011.
