Report argues 2004 Games boosted GDP
Gross domestic product would have been 2.5 percent lower and employment would have been reduced by 44,000 jobs had the 2004 Olympic Games not been staged in Athens, according to the conclusions of a report by the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE) on the event’s impact on the Greek economy.
IOBE stressed however that had the Olympic installations been better utilized after the Games, the benefit would have been even greater. It also noted that several projects funded by the Public Investments Program for the Games branded “Olympic projects” were in fact not.
The report was commissioned last summer by the head of the Athens Olympics organizing committee, Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, on the occasion of the event’s 10-year anniversary.
Jacques Rogge, who was president of the International Olympic Committee when Greece hosted the Games, later admitted to Kathimerini that the 2004 Olympics contributed toward the swelling of the country’s debt.
