Greece’s Economy: Progress on the Surface but Lags Behind EU in Key Indicators like Exports and FDI

The Greek economy is making progress on the outward-looking side, as highlighted in the Reforms Observatory of KEPE’s bulletin. Despite this progress, there remains a significant gap between Greece and the EU in areas such as exports and foreign direct investments.

Exports of goods and services have increased significantly from 19% of GDP in 2009 to 44.9% of GDP in 2023 in Greece. However, this is still lower compared to the EU, where the rate increased from 36.3% in 2009 to 52.7% in 2023. When looking at exports of goods alone, Greece lags even further behind. In 2009, exports of goods were at 8.5% of GDP and increased to 22.6% in 2023. In contrast, the EU saw an increase from 26.9% to 37.1% of GDP in the same period.

Gross fixed capital formation in Greece started at 20.8% of GDP in 2009, similar to the EU-27’s 21.2%. However, while the EU-27 saw a slight increase reaching 22.2% of GDP in