Greece's Economy Is Rising Like a Phoenix

Companies and tourists are pouring money in again
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 1, 2023 1:35 PM CDT
Greece's Economy Is Rising Like a Phoenix
The supermoon rises behind the ancient temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion, about 45 miles south of Athens, Greece, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023.   (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

If you assumed Greece had yet to recover from the financial pummeling it took a decade ago, you'd be mostly wrong. The New York Times provides an updated economic picture of the country that "nearly broke the eurozone" with its three international bailouts over the years between 2010 and 2015, and the word it uses is "booming." The economy is growing at a pace twice the eurozone average, unemployment has dropped from nearly 28% to 11% in the last decade, tourists pumped more than $20 billion into the economy this summer, and major corporations are directing their dollars there again (the Times flags a $1 billion Microsoft data center that's in the works).

Moody's has a similar positive view of things. In 2010, it downgraded the country's bonds to junk status; in mid-September, it bumped the rating up two notches from Ba3 to Ba1. That puts Greece's bonds just one notch short of investment grade—the rating DBRS Morningstar had upgraded Greece to the week prior, reports the AP. Those rating agencies, along with Standard and Poor's and Fitch, are the four that are considered by the European Central Bank; the latter two are expected to make a move themselves by year's end, too. But the picture remains a complicated one: Greece's debt to GDP ratio is still a sky-high 166%, and the Times talks to residents who continue to experience the pains wrought by austerity; read their stories here. (More Greece stories.)

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