Bank of Greece (BoG) governor Yannis Stournaras on Friday offered a balanced assessment of the recession-battered Greek economy, referring to risks that still cast a shadow over economic prospects, despite the progress achieved so far.
Stournaras, a former finance minister in previous governments, spoke at the second annual EU-Arab World summit taking place in the Greek capital.
He said the most prominent short-term risk lies in possible delays to concluding the third review of the current bailout, something he said would lead to a new spiral of uncertainty and threaten the economic recovery.
Conversely, he said continuous efforts to push through reforms and fiscal adjustment are producing results.
Moreover, Stournaras repeated that the BoG forecasts that Greek GDP will increase by 1.7 percent in 2017, a figure more-or-less similar to what European institutions are now predicting. For 2018 and 2019, he put the forecast at 2.4 and 2.7 percent, respectively, but on the presumption that reform agreed to with creditors will be smoothly implemented and according to a scheduled timetable.
