Greece has returned to investment grade status following back-to-back upgrades in 2023 from international credit ratings agencies in Europe and Asia, signaling further upgrades in the months ahead and underscoring the success of the country’s economic policies.
With support from EU funds, the country is moving towards a more sustainable development model. Greece’s recovery and resilience plan (RRP) consists of 68 reforms and 106 investments that are supported by EUR 17.4 billion in grants and EUR 12.7 billion in loans, representing 14.5% of GDP in 2022. [Source: European Commission – 2023 Country Report – Greece]
Greece repaid its International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans in April 2022, two years ahead of schedule.
The return to economic growth has generated new investor interest in the country. From 2011-2022, the U.S. was one of the largest source of foreign direct investment in Greece. Investments by Applied Materials, AWS, Oracle, Amazon web services, Cubb, Cisco, Deloitte, Digital Realty Group, Google, Tesla, Hewlett Packard, JP Morgan, Meta, DFC, Microsoft and Pfizer are projected to have an economic impact worth billions of dollars over the next few years.
Greece is increasingly a source of solutions – not just in the fields of energy diplomacy and defense, but in high-tech innovation, healthcare, and green energy, lending prospects for solid economic growth and stability here and in the wider region.
Greek SMEs represent 99.9% of Greek corporates; they generate 61.6% of value added and 81.8% of employment, exceeding the EU average of 56.8% and 66.4% respectively. [Source: European Commission – 2022 SME country fact sheet – Greece – estimates produced by JRC, based on 2008-2019 figures from national and Eurostat databases]
Access to finance remains difficult for many small companies, although the percentage of SMEs whose banks loan’s applications were refused or rejected in 2021 is much lower than the EU average [Source: Union Of Hellenic Chambers of Commerce, 2021]