The Greek economy is recovering, with a return to growth and rising employment and wages, the head of the Parliamentary Budget Office Fragkiskos Koutentakis said on Thursday, presenting the main conclusions of the Budget Office’s latest report to the relevant parliamentary committee, ANA reports.
According to its findings, the nine-month fiscal result for the execution of the state budget was improved by 1.1 billion euros compared with the same period last year.
He also pointed to less encouraging signs, such as low inflation and the rising current accounts deficit, as well as a series of uncertainties affecting the course of the Greek economy.
Among these he noted international conditions resulting from the trade war between the U.S. and China, developments in Italy and their impact on bond yields in the Eurozone, which combined with the large number of non-performing loans had a negative impact on liquidity, and court decisions to pay back wage and pension cuts, creating a precedent for similar litigation in the future.
Presenting Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) data, he disagreed that there was “overtaxation” in Greece, which he said ranked 7th among the 16 Eurozone countries for total revenues from taxes and social insurance contributions as a percentage of GDP.
While income tax was below the Eurozone average in Greece, nevertheless, taxation on goods and services was the highest at 15.8 pct, compared with an average of 11.9 pct for the Eurozone.
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