Provopoulos: 2013 was probably the last year of recession

Speaking at the annual general meeting of shareholders of the Bank of Greece (BoG) its director G. Provopoulos estimated that the chances that 2013 was the last year of the recession increase, but also set two key conditions to verify the prediction of recovery in 2014.

Determination and consistency in the implementation of the stabilization program since, as he said, the positive results so far do not leave room for complacency but require continued fiscal adjustment to maintain a permanent basis and to extend the primary surplus to ensure debt sustainability and consolidate confidence.

Secondly, avert or at least minimize the risks and uncertainties that could result from deterioration of the socio-political climate due to conventional conflicts and polarization ahead of the European Parliament and local government elections.

Provopoulos also said that the BoG will publish the results of "stress tests" on the capital adequacy of banks next week.

He added that in the current exercise, BlackRock evaluated data with a wider analysis for the domestic loan portfolios and provided estimates for loans of major subsidiaries of Greek banks abroad.

This time, the Bank of Greece used as external consultants the Ernst & Young and Rothschild firms. Aiming at full transparency, next week it will announce the results of the exercise, together with full details of the methodology and scenarios used.

In the meantime, members of the BoG will have meetings with members of the EU, ECB and IMF, concerning the technical details related to the methodology and results of the exercise.