ECONOMY

Every day without a deal costs 22.3 mln

An average of 59 enterprises close every day of the working week and 613 jobs are lost, while every day, with the market facing a cash crunch, the economy loses 22.3 million euros from its gross domestic product, according to a report published by the Hellenic Confederation of Commerce and Enterprises (ESEE).

A deal with the country’s creditors is more urgent than ever, ESEE stressed, but the economy would need as much as 25 billion euros in financing in order to restart, as losses from the first five months will be hard to cover over the rest of the year, argued ESEE.

This uncertainty has hit the local economy after five years of crisis, during which retail commerce turnover shrank by 26.2 percent. Things were worse for wholesale commerce, with turnover dropping 37.1 percent, while the car market crumbled by 61.9 percent in the same period, the confederation’s data show.

Liquidity is becoming an unfamiliar term in the market as 95 percent of applications for loans are rejected every day by commercial banks, while only one in 10 enterprises dares to ask for funding from the country’s four systemic lenders, the ESEE report showed. The absorption of funding tools for business liquidity stands at 40 percent, while in the funding of commerce the rate does not exceed 12 percent.

ESEE is urging the government in dramatic terms to reach a deal with Greece’s creditors even if it’s not a great deal.

“A final agreement, even if it is mediocre or below expectations, is certain to allow the Greek economy to feel free at last to operate for the remainder of 2015,” read Monday’s ESEE statement. “Financial and political time are running dangerously short, and reaching a sustainable agreement with our partners is vital as it is directly associated with the country’s capacity to draw liquidity from the European funding tools,” it added.

“The official position of Greek commerce and small and medium-sized entrepreneurship is to end the market’s four months of stagnation caused by the ‘no deal, no Grexit’ situation, replacing the content of the original agreement offering ‘money for the debt and grace for the country’ with ‘money for the market and growth for the country’,” ESEE concluded.

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