ELSTAT announces a big growth on Monday

By Tasos Dasopoulos

The result of the positive course of tourism in development will be known with the announcement of GDP development for the third quarter of the year by ELSTAT next Monday.

According to the latest estimates of the Ministry of Finance, tourism regained for this year and for the period July-September, about 55% of the turnover it had before the pandemic, ie the same period of 2019, a percentage that corresponds to about 9.9 billion. In the same quarter of 2020, although the market was open after the first hard lockdown of the economy for reasons of social distancing, tourism operated only where the entrepreneur himself took the risk of opening his own unit.

Last year, in the entire tourist season, the turnover from the “heavy industry of the country” recovered about 25% of the turnover of 2019, ie about 4.5 billion euros. At the same time, “GDP” sank by 10%. At that time, Greece had the biggest recession in the Eurozone, precisely because tourism with a few exceptions did not work. So the change in GDP will be positive as gross domestic product won this year at least 5.5 billion for the period July-September from the best expected course of Greek tourism.

Along with tourism, in the third quarter of 2021 we had double-digit increases in retail sales, exports, construction activity and investments that also contributed to GDP growth. Nevertheless, GDP growth for the third quarter will be less than the 16.2% recorded in the second quarter of the year. This is because the July-September period was compared to the same period in 2020 when the first universal lockdown for the economy was in force. In addition to tourism in the same period of 2020 we also had an increase in construction activity and exports.

However, tourism, especially for this year, after the extension of the tourist season and for the months of October and November, will improve the course of GDP for the fourth quarter. The period October-December, apart from the additional income from tourism, also has the advantage that it will be compared to the same period of 2020, when after a period of local lockdown last October, it passed to the second horizontal lockdown for the whole country.

New review in view

With these data, at the beginning of next year we are expected to have another review of growth for this year from the 6.9% projected in the budget at levels above 7%, since once again there will be data that will document it. .

YPOIK will not wait for the publication of the data of the fourth quarter before finalizing the new revision of GDP. The size that will play the role of “growth meter” will be public revenue. The money that will go into the public coffers by the end of February can, with a reduction in all activity, give a fairly accurate forecast for the GDP of the fourth quarter and consequently of the GDP of the whole year.

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