{
  "title": "IMF Executive Board Concludes 2025 Article IV Consultation with Greece",
  "publication": "IMF News, April 4, 2025",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2025/04/04/pr2589-greece-imf-executive-board-concludes-2025-article-iv-consultation",
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  "summary": "Washington, DC – April 7, 2025: The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded the Article IV consultation with Greece on March 31, 2025.",
  "publishDate": "2025-04-04",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Overview",
      "content": "- The Executive Board concluded the Article IV consultation with Greece on March 31, 2025.\n- Greece's near-term economic outlook is described as favorable with continued robust expansion of real GDP."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Near-term outlook and projections",
      "content": "- Real GDP growth:\n  - 2024: 2.3 percent (est.)\n  - 2025: 2.1 percent (proj.)\n  - 2026: 1.9 percent\n- Drivers:\n  - Investment remains a key driver, supported by NGEU-funded projects.\n  - Private consumption growth underpinned by favorable employment and income growth.\n- Inflation:\n  - CPI inflation (period avg., percent): 2024: 3.0; 2025: 2.5\n  - Headline inflation expected to resume downward trend with stabilizing global energy prices.\n  - Core inflation expected to be more persistent due to services inflation and wage growth."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Banking system and financial sector resilience",
      "content": "- Non-Performing Loan ratio in systemically important banks: around 3 percent.\n- Banks have:\n  - Sustained high profits.\n  - Issued capital instruments that have boosted capital adequacy.\n  - Liquidity and funding buffers well above prudential requirements and the EU average.\n- Policy guidance from Directors:\n  - Close monitoring of risks associated with accelerating credit growth and credit exposure.\n  - Activation of a positive neutral countercyclical capital buffer and borrower-based measures for mortgage loan borrowers welcomed.\n  - Recommendation to calibrate macroprudential toolkits to align with emerging risks.\n  - Elevated bank profits should be primarily utilized to enhance capital buffers and loss-absorption capacity."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Public finances and debt sustainability",
      "content": "- Public finance indicators (percent of GDP):\n  - Revenue: 2024: 49.2; 2025: 49.4; 2026: 49.8\n  - Expenditure: 2024: 49.5; 2025: 49.9; 2026: 49.8\n  - Overall balance: 2024: -0.3; 2025: -0.5; 2026: -0.6\n  - Primary balance: 2024: 2.9; 2025: 2.4\n  - Public debt 1/: 2024: 150.8; 2025: 142.4; 2026: 138.0\n- Directors’ recommendations:\n  - Maintain primary surpluses above 2 percent of GDP in the medium term to enhance debt sustainability and build buffers.\n  - Prioritize public investment, including for the green transition and energy security.\n  - Improve social expenditure efficiency and contain spending pressures, especially on pensions and public-sector wages.\n  - Continue reforms that reduce tax evasion (noted as contributing to strong revenue performance)."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Structural reforms and growth-enhancing policies",
      "content": "- Directors highlight remaining crisis legacies and structural imbalances as impediments to medium-term growth.\n- Recommended structural priorities:\n  - Raise labor force participation, particularly for women.\n  - Cultivate a better-skilled workforce.\n  - Reduce regulatory burdens and barriers to entry for firms, especially in services.\n  - Advance judicial system reforms to address crisis legacy debt and enhance business dynamism and productivity.\n  - Continue progress in green and digital transitions to support energy security and productivity."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Risks to outlook",
      "content": "- Risks to growth: balanced.\n  - Potential headwinds: growth slowdown in major euro area countries; deterioration of regional conflicts; global policy uncertainty.\n  - Acceleration of ambitious structural reforms could improve growth prospects.\n- Risks to inflation: tilted upward.\n  - Stronger- and more persistent-than-expected wage growth could further fuel services inflation.\n  - Fluctuations in global and regional energy prices could exacerbate inflation pressures."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Key statistics and memorandum items",
      "content": "- Population (millions): 10.4\n- Per capita GDP (€'000): 22.9\n- IMF quota (millions of SDRs): 2,428.9\n- Literacy rate (percent): 97.9\n- (Percent of total): 0.51\n- Poverty rate (percent): 26.1\n- Main products and exports: tourism and shipping services; food and beverages; industrial products; petroleum and chemicals.\n- Key export markets: EU (Italy, Germany, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Spain), Turkey, Lebanon, USA, UK.\n- GHG emissions per capita (tons of CO2 equivalent): 6.3\n- Balance of payments (percent of GDP):\n  - Current account 2/: 2024: -6.9; 2025: -6.6; 2026: -6.1\n  - FDI: 2024: -1.8; 2025: -1.6\n  - External debt: 2024: 238.9; 2025: 232.5; 2026: 227.1\n- Exchange rate:\n  - REER (percent change) 3/: 2024: 0.0\n- Memorandum item:\n  - Nominal GDP (billions of euros): 2024: 237.6; 2025: 248.4; 2026: 258.7\n\nSource: IMF Executive Board Concludes 2025 Article IV Consultation with Greece (April 4, 2025).\n\n---\n\n\n References\n\n- https://www.imf.org/-/media/images/imf/bios/imfboard.jpg\n- The Executive Board\n- Greece and the IMF\n- IMF Policy Advice -- A Factsheet\n- Press Releases\n- PRESS CENTER\n- http://www.IMF.org/external/np/sec/misc/qualifiers.htm\n- https://www.imf.org/en/home\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2025/04/04/pr2589-greece-imf-executive-board-concludes-2025-article-iv-consultation"
    }
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    "Published: April 4, 2025",
    "The Executive Board concluded the Article IV consultation with Greece on March 31, 2025.",
    "Greece's near-term economic outlook is described as favorable with continued robust expansion of real GDP.",
    "Real GDP growth:",
    "Drivers:",
    "Inflation:",
    "Non-Performing Loan ratio in systemically important banks: around 3 percent.",
    "Banks have:",
    "Policy guidance from Directors:",
    "Public finance indicators (percent of GDP):",
    "Directors’ recommendations:",
    "Directors highlight remaining crisis legacies and structural imbalances as impediments to medium-term growth.",
    "Recommended structural priorities:",
    "Risks to growth: balanced.",
    "Risks to inflation: tilted upward.",
    "Population (millions): 10.4",
    "Per capita GDP (€'000): 22.9",
    "IMF quota (millions of SDRs): 2,428.9",
    "Literacy rate (percent): 97.9",
    "(Percent of total): 0.51",
    "Poverty rate (percent): 26.1",
    "Main products and exports: tourism and shipping services; food and beverages; industrial products; petroleum and chemicals.",
    "Key export markets: EU (Italy, Germany, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Spain), Turkey, Lebanon, USA, UK.",
    "GHG emissions per capita (tons of CO2 equivalent): 6.3",
    "Balance of payments (percent of GDP):",
    "Exchange rate:",
    "Memorandum item:",
    "[https://www.imf.org/-/media/images/imf/bios/imfboard.jpg](https://www.imf.org/-/media/images/imf/bios/imfboard.jpg)",
    "[The Executive Board](https://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/memdir/eds.aspx)",
    "[Greece and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/GRC/index.htm)",
    "[IMF Policy Advice -- A Factsheet](https://www.imf.org/en/about/factsheets/imf-surveillance)",
    "[Press Releases](https://www.imf.org/en/news/searchnews)",
    "[PRESS CENTER](http://presscenter.imf.org/)",
    "[http://www.IMF.org/external/np/sec/misc/qualifiers.htm](http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/misc/qualifiers.htm)",
    "[https://www.imf.org/en/home](https://www.imf.org/en/home)"
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