Greek Economy News

The eurozone jobless rate held at the lowest level in some seven years in November as a modest economic upturn continues, official data showed on Monday.

Greece needs debt relief from its international creditors to combat its dual economic and refugee crises, a UN expert said Tuesday.

Greece`s economy grew by 0.9 percent in the second quarter, official date showed Friday, improving on the 0.8 percent figure reported in a flash estimate earlier in August.

"The agreed arrangements have been agreed and will be applied," Georges Stathakis told reporters in answer to a question on the planned privatisation of Piraeus port, the national railway company and a string of other ports and airports.

The figures showed second quarter growth up 1.4 per cent compared to the same period the previous year.

The Greek economy, which crawled out of a six-year recession only in 2014, will shrink 2.3 percent in 2015 and another 1.3 percent in 2016, the sources said.

"What we don't have is a political agreement," said Commission spokeswoman Annika Breidthardt, hours after Athens suggested that the deal was all but done.

A leading economic think tank on Wednesday forecast that Greece`s GDP will shrink this year by three percent and 2.3 percent next year. Thus it will eventually be nearly a third smaller than it was at its peak.

The country`s main banks took a heavy blow at the opening with drops of around 30 percent.

Trading on the Athens bourse was suspended in late June as part of capital controls imposed to stem a debilitating outflow of euros that threatened to collapse Greece`s banks and hurl the indebted country out of the euro zone.

Meetings with officials from the European Commission, European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which had been expected to begin on Friday, were delayed by logistical issues, including the location of talks and security.

Meetings with officials from the European Commission, European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which had been expected to begin on Friday, were delayed by logistical issues, including the location of talks and security.

Greek lawmakers are on Wednesday set to vote on a second batch of reforms that must pass if Athens is to receive its third huge international bailout, in a key test of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras` authority.

Lawmakers in Germany, the biggest contributor to euro zone bailouts, on Friday gave their go-ahead for the currency bloc to negotiate a third bailout for Greece that could total 86 billion euros ($93 billion) over three years. 

The vote will almost certainly see large numbers of Syriza lawmakers dissent and vote against the package, raising questions of the government's survival in its current form.

In return, leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will be required to enact key legislation in parliament on Monday to start restoring the broken trust of his partners in the 19-nation currency union to win a third bailout, ministers said.

The EU cancelled a full 28-nation summit on Sunday to decide whether Greece stays in the European single currency as a divided eurozone struggled to reach a reform-for-bailout deal.

"I have cancelled EUCO (the European Union summit) today," European Council President Donald Tusk said in a tweet.

The poll by Metron Analysis for Parapolitika newspaper showed that although the overwhelming majority of those polled want to remain in the single currency, 55 percent said it was the right choice to vote `No` in last weekend`s referendum on tough austerity measures. 

A total of 84 percent of Greeks want to keep the euro, an opinion poll released on Friday showed, with just 12 percent favouring a return to the drachma, as the country races to clinch a cash-for-reforms deal with its creditors.