Experts put growth outlook down to reforms gap, debt
The International Monetary Fund has significantly reduced its medium-term outlook for Greece’s economic growth, to 1.2 percent for 2023, while bringing its estimate for next year broadly in line with that of Athens, at 2.4 percent, in the latest update of its World Economic Outlook published on Tuesday.
“The Fund may see that reforms are not proceeding in Greece as they should have and is reflecting this in its long-term projections,” Giorgos Stratopoulos, an analyst at the E-Kyklos think tank in Athens, told Xinhua.
“This downward revision is associated with the medium-to-long-term sustainability of the Greek debt,” argued University of Athens associate professor Dimitris Kenourgios.
“The Fund has not backtracked on its opinion; in the short-term it has shown a compromise, but expects more measures to ease the national debt,” he told Xinhua.
“Furthermore, Greece has so far failed to tap the money markets, and looks like being a long way from doing so; this adds to the IMF’s long-term view of the Greek economy,” Kenourgios pointed out.
[Xinhua]
