"Greek statistics" once more in the spotlight

Two days after the filing of the preliminary budget draft for 2012, the Hellenic Statistical Authority surprisingly brings forth the well-known case of “Greek Statistics”.

The mess is extraordinary! Suffice it to say that for 2007 that ELSTAT sees the GDP at 222.7 billion and the budget at 227.3 billion! For 2008, the corresponding figures are 232.9 against 236 billion respectively, for 2009 at 231.6 against 235 billion and for last year 227.3 billion at 230 billion in the budget!

The difference of these 4 years is… just 13.9 billion euros!

Specifically, the Authority stated that for methodological reasons, the growth (volume change) of the GDP for 2006-2010 was revised as follows: 2006 (5.5% from 5.2%), 2007 (3.0% from 4.3%), 2008 (-0.2% from 1.0%), 2009 (-3.2% from -2.0%), 2010 (-3.5% from -4.5%).

So we were poorer than we thought by 650 million in 2006, by 2.8 billion in 2007, by 2.6 billion in 2008 and 2009 was the same, but we were richer by 2.2 billion last year!

In the announcement, particularly for 2010, it is noted that the revision of growth is mainly due to the smaller reduction of final household consumption and non-profit institutions serving households (-3.6% as compared to the previous estimate of -4.5%), largest import reduction (-7.2% as compared to the previous -4.9%) and greater export growth (4.2% as compared with the previous estimate of 3.8%).

What does this all mean? Simply, that for this five-year gap there arises 17.6 billion euros' worth of difference for the country’s GDP based on current prices. That’s because besides growth, the GDP itself has been revised to current market prices compared to March 2011’s estimates; thus: 2005 (0.9%), 2006 (-1.1%), 2007 (-1.9%), 2008 (-1.7%), 2009 (-1.4%) and 2010 (-1.2%).

Besides the mess that emerges once more in relation to the Greek state’s financial data and the unprecedented fact of presenting revised data two days after the deposition of the budget draft, it is evident that the development will open up a new round of bargaining between the Troika and Athens, focusing - of course - on the adjustments to be made or the new measures that should be taken…