Market Watch
November 15, 2010
Greece got the all-clear on its statistical methods Monday, but only after the European Union’s statistical agency revised to 15.4% of gross domestic product its estimate of the nation’s 2009 fiscal deficit — higher by nearly two full percentage points.
An upward revision from a previous 13.6% estimate had been widely anticipated after the European Commission last spring flagged Greece’s statistics agency for a range of questionable practices.
The Greek finance ministry, in turn, lifted its estimate of the 2010 deficit to 9.4% of GDP from an earlier forecast of 7.9%, but it said the year-to-year reduction of six percentage points in the deficit was unprecedented and was larger than planned.
“The latest upward revisions to the Greek budget deficit figures emphasize the enormous task that Greece faces to get its public finances back on an even keel,” said Ben May, European economist at Capital Economics.
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