Trade and Investment
Since the fall of communism, Greece has invested heavily in neighbouring Balkan countries. Between 1997 and 2009, 12.11% of foreign direct investment capital in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia was Greek, ranking fourth. In 2009 alone, Greeks invested €380 million in the country, with companies such as Hellenic Petroleum having made important strategic investments.
Greece invested €1.38 billion in Bulgaria between 2005 and 2007 and many important companies (including Bulgarian Postbank, United Bulgarian Bank Coca-Cola Bulgaria) are owned by Greek financial groups. In Serbia, 250 Greek companies are active with a total investment of over €2 billion. Romanian statistics from 2005 show that Greek investment in the country exceeded €3 billion.
Since the 2009 crisis, Greece's negative balance of trade has decreased significantly from €43.3 billion in 2008 to €20.8 billion in 2011, a decrease of €22.5 billion or 52%. Exports in 2011 alone saw an overall increase of 39%, while imports fell by 9.2%. In the first three months of 2012, imports fell by 12.8% while exports rose by 16.2% compared to the same period in 2011.
| Rank | Imports | Rank | Exports | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Origin | Value | Destination | Value | ||
| 1 | Germany | €7,238.2 | 1 | Denmark | €2,001.9 |
| 2 | Italy | €6,918.5 | 2 | Italy | €1,821.3 |
| 3 | Russia | €4,454.0 | 3 | France | €1,237.0 |
| 4 | China | €3,347.1 | 4 | Netherlands | €1,103.0 |
| 5 | France | €3,098.0 | 5 | Russia | €885.4 |
| – | European Union | €33,330.5 | – | European Union | €11,102.0 |
| – | Total | €60,669.9 | – | Total | €17,334.1 |
| Rank | Imports | Rank | Exports | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| – | European Union | €22,688.5 | – | European Union | €11,377.7 |
| – | Total | €42,045.4 | – | Total | €22,451.1 |
| Rank | Imports | Rank | Exports | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| – | European Union | €5,183.4 | – | European Union | €2,650.2 |
| – | Total | €9,588.8 | – | Total | €5,550.8 |
According to an OECD report in 2011, Greece is set to have a positive balance of trade of €12.3 billion by 2013 (the figure includes imports/exports of both goods and services). The head of the European Investment Bank, Werner Hoyer, said on 4 March 2012 that Greece would receive loans for a total of €2 billion in what Mr. Hoyer dubbed a "new Marshall Plan".
Read more about this topic: Economy Of Greece
Famous quotes containing the words trade and, trade and/or investment:
“Trade and commerce, if they were not made of India-rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and, if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“You know that fiction, prose rather, is possibly the roughest trade of all in writing. You do not have the reference, the old important reference. You have the sheet of blank paper, the pencil, and the obligation to invent truer than things can be true. You have to take what is not palpable and make it completely palpable and also have it seem normal and so that it can become a part of experience of the person who reads it.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“The only thing that was dispensed free to the old New Bedford whalemen was a Bible. A well-known owner of one of that city’s whaling fleets once described the Bible as the best cheap investment a shipowner could make.”
—For the State of Massachusetts, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)